Bad Worldbuilding in ASoIaF

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

But at the same time, noblewomen like Asha have freedoms that someone like Cersei can only dream of. I’ve seen it suggested that the presence of thralls and salt wives creates a caste system where the Ironborn women are given more autonomy precisely because other women are treated as property. But again, there’s no way of knowing because the books give us nothing to work with.

I always liked a comment that someone made.

Every time a male Greyjoy is born, the Gods toss a coin.  On one side is moron, and on the other is rapist, and sometimes the coin lands on its side.

Edited December 6, 2023 by SeanF

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

But at the same time, noblewomen like Asha have freedoms that someone like Cersei can only dream of. I’ve seen it suggested that the presence of thralls and salt wives creates a caste system where the Ironborn women are given more autonomy precisely because other women are treated as property. But again, there’s no way of knowing because the books give us nothing to work with.

I always got the feeling that Asha is just a random outlier rather than an example. For example, the Mormonts seem much more emblematic of a cultural better situation than an individual one. Brienne has similar freedom to Asha for example, but is very much a Greelander. Again though I think Brienne’s autonamy is an outlier and not thst the Stormlands is less sexist then the Westerlands. . 

Also I know Brienne gets more pushback on her existence in story…but I think that is because she is interacting with other people rather than soldiers specifically placed under her command. If Selwyn had placed soldiers under her command (actually maybe he did and we just never see them?), I assume they would not be near constantly disrespecting her. What I am suggesting is Asha’s freedom/authority is essentially completely tied to Balon giving her said power/freedom. I've always thought of Balon as the most terrible father in existence because of Theon..but perhaps this suggests he is actually alright if I was to view him through Asha’s perspective. I would back this up with how incredibly dismissive both Victorian and Aeron are of her claim. Keep in mind in the Greellands daughters do inherit ahead of uncles. 

Edited December 6, 2023 by Lord of Raventree Hall

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

On 12/6/2023 at 3:03 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

But at the same time, noblewomen like Asha have freedoms that someone like Cersei can only dream of. I’ve seen it suggested that the presence of thralls and salt wives creates a caste system where the Ironborn women are given more autonomy precisely because other women are treated as property. But again, there’s no way of knowing because the books give us nothing to work with.

Sorry to add more, but I thought of something more - I forgot to say Cersei is also a bad example. Tywin is a control-freak. He is also extremely sexist. I think even for a normal Westerosi nobility, Tywin is particularly  sexist and dismissive of women, and on top of that particularly controlling of his children. 

We can see Tywin’s particular brand of mysigony in other Lannisters as well. Tyrion seeing Shae as a valuable object essentially and other prostitutes as even less than that. Jaime’s early disrespect of Brienne (constantly calling her a wench) and Catelyn (he said some horrible things in that interaction). Kevan thinking that Cersei’s walk of shame was somehow a normal/just thing that would put Cersei in her place. Even Cersei herself hates women (self hate) and says mysigonist things quite often. Tywin had a particularly sexist world view, so comparing Cersei to Asha also comes with this troubling bag of sexism that comes with being raised by/fathered by Tywin Lannister. 

Edited December 7, 2023 by Lord of Raventree Hall

[Aldarion]

Sorry with late reply, I was busy with RL stuff...

On 12/4/2023 at 6:53 PM, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

This was way too long and I am busy, so I cherry picked things to respond to (I wasn't being unfair I don't thin though, just chose things I wanted to respond to the most after skimming through...the top half, I didn't even get to the bottom half). 

LoTR - Then read more. I've read a ton of historical fiction. Do you know why it's called historical fiction? Because it's based on actual history not a fantasy setting. Or read...actual history books. I've also read those. I quite enjoyed some of them even. LoTR is..not close to the reality in any way whatsoever. Again, I think you are picking specific elements and acting like it's the entirety of the civilization. Like, if someone perfectly copied social media but then ignored every single other aspect of modern day society and made a book about it (and then people called that super accurate someday in the future). Also, I wrote about how bad the Dothraki were in my complaints. The Easterlings are literally just a racist stereotype in the books I read. Again, I didn't read the Smilliarion (or whatever its called). The idea that they were fleshed out in any whatsoever in the books is ridiculous. As bad as the Dothraki were...they have speaking roles. There is some attempt to humanize them. I again feel like you...read a different set of books then the ones I did, as there is no way anyone could call that "good world buidling" when they were just racist stereotypes. 

First, I don't read just historical fiction, I read actual history books.

Second, just because it is "historical fiction" does not mean it is historically accurate. A lot of so-called "historical fiction" is less historically accurate than LotR.

Third, I never said that LotR is perfectly historically accurate. Just that it is more accurate than ASoIaF, which it is. LotR actually has a lot of things that are historically inaccurate in its worldbuilding - but most of those were intentional on Tolkien's part. And those that were not are simply due to state of historiography at the time. Meanwhile, Martin has directly claimed historical realism as one of aspects of the series, so any inaccuracies can only be mistakes.

And no, Easterlings in LotR are anything but racist stereotypes. Honestly, I don't think you know what words "racist" or a "stereotype" mean. Merely being servants of Sauron doesn't make them into a "racist stereotype". Easterlings are well-organized, have advanced societies, competent, well-organized and well-equipped militaries... hell, some of the Easterling nations are peers of Gondor in terms of military organization and equipment. Literally only "racist" thing about the Easterlings is that they... happen to be in Sauron's service. Which is not unique to Easterlings, so even that is really not "racist" at all (Mouth of Sauron for example is specifically a Black Numenorean, Umbar used to be Gondorian territory which rebelled and allied with Sauron, Dunlendings ally with Saruman, and that is just LotR stuff).

Dothraki? Dothraki actually are a racist stereotype, and them "having speaking roles" makes it worse, not better, because racist portrayal can no longer be excused by incomplete narrative perspective. In Lord of the Rings, we see only Easterlings who had come to attack the West, and even then only briefly... so any "racist" aspects can be excused by perspective of people seeing them. No such excuse for the Dothraki.

And yes, there are attempts to humanize human servants of Sauron... attempts which Tolkien handles far better than Martin does his so-called "humanization" of the Dothraki. At the very least, Tolkien doesn't insult the Easterlings and the Haradrim when attempting the so-called "humanization". Portrayal of Dothraki has only suffered from the attenton Martin gives them.

Hell, entirety of central Essos is an exercise in Orientalism. Eastern Essos isn't... but only because we know so little of it. And Western Essos also isn't... only because it is based on Central and Eastern Europe instead.

Not to say that Martin's Europe-based societies don't have a lot of crappy stereotypes, but generally, further East you go, the worse it gets.

And this:

Quote

Again, I think you are picking specific elements and acting like it's the entirety of the civilization. Like, if someone perfectly copied social media but then ignored every single other aspect of modern day society and made a book about it

Is literally what you are doing. You seem to believe that merely giving Dothraki representation among the "protagonist" groups is enough to make their portrayal not racist. Which is a stance that makes no sense at all. Especially since we don't even have a Dothraki PoV character that would explain the random collection of miscellaneous stupidity that Martin attempts to pass for the Dothraki "culture". We only have Daenaerys who is... not Dothraki.

Can you say, "White Woman's Burden"?

I will ignore the corporations part due to Ran's request and also lack of time.

[frenin]

On 11/12/2023 at 1:09 PM, Aldarion said:

Daenerys reads like that to me.

I wonder why exactly.

Dany certainly is some of those things but others...

 

Quote

liked or respected by most other characters,

The only thing most characters  respect about Dany are her dragons.

 

Quote

unrealistically free of weaknesses, extremely attractive, innately virtuous, and/or generally lacking meaningful character flaws."

??

I don't have a problem with the worldbuilding, i can tell it is not perfect by all means but it is enjoyable enough.

The only thing that is blatantly bad writing is how the northmen came to speak the common tongue when they succesfully repelled andal invasions, other than that, i can live with the rest.

[Aldarion]

58 minutes ago, frenin said:

I wonder why exactly.

Dany certainly is some of those things but others...

This is the main reason:

On 11/12/2023 at 1:09 PM, Aldarion said:

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.

Slaver's Bay, Dothraki, Unsullied... literally none of those make any kind of sense, and none could have existed historically. The only reason they exist is to provide Daenerys with a playground where she can prevail without any of the things she would realistically have required - and that other characters do require - to prevail.

1 hour ago, frenin said:

??

I don't have a problem with the worldbuilding, i can tell it is not perfect by all means but it is enjoyable enough.

The only thing that is blatantly bad writing is how the northmen came to speak the common tongue when they succesfully repelled andal invasions, other than that, i can live with the rest.

Worldbuilding of Westeros is bad but passable.

Essos however, and especially anything eastwards of the Free Cities, is downright terrible. And Daenerys is, I believe, one of major, if not the main, reasons why.

[astarkchoice]

The lannisters unlimited gold , now  in'current times' added to the reynes/castermeres gold mines! The lanniater should thus be the most powerful family in all of westeros , in real world terms unlimited gold and the power that comes with that would be virtualy as effective as dragons.

[Angel Eyes]

19 hours ago, astarkchoice said:

The lannisters unlimited gold , now  in'current times' added to the reynes/castermeres gold mines! The lanniater should thus be the most powerful family in all of westeros , in real world terms unlimited gold and the power that comes with that would be virtualy as effective as dragons.

And in other cases, the silver mines the Greatjon seized (which are technically still underwater) barely put a dent.

[Craving Peaches]

22 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Essos however, and especially anything eastwards of the Free Cities, is downright terrible.

It goes from semi-plausible fantasy renaissance city-states to idiot caricature of nomads to stuff that feels like it came from a dream (aside from Yi Ti which just seems to be an imperial China expy).

[the trees have eyes]

On 11/19/2023 at 6:02 AM, SaffronLady said:

Well if you put it like that I do may as well extrapolate my point then.

Westeros ... is so decentralized, the highborn in the provinces have so much power, they dare to stop the execution of royal edicts. Like I said, case in point: Edwell Celtigar. More specifically, the fundraising policy he designed for Jaehaerys I. The lords of Lannisport and Oldtown basically went "nope, we're not following that". We don't even need to bring in early modern England, this won't happen even in 13th-century England. I am aware of the Magna Carta, but if you want to do that conversation we could discuss circumstances later. But nobody called Jaehaerys I "Lackland", for starters.

If Westeros was centralized enough to plausibly support Littlefinger's rise, we won't be even having this conversation in the first place. The basic premise behind "LF mismanaging the realm's finances" is, well, the realm is centralized enough for the royal court to mismanage the realm, which doesn't look true even for Robert-era Westeros. Least among them Robert maintaining his authority primarily through personal charisma.

I could come up with further explanations to patch up GRRM's worldbuilding but TBH I just ... don't want to do that. With The World of Ice and Fire and Fire and Blood out, the primary timeline just becomes riddled with more and more headaches due to how detailed it is. ASOIAF might work better if GRRM wrote it as a series of novellas and short stories and leave the gaps in worldbuilding to readers, instead of turning it into a series of door-stoppers where the gaps in one become fault lines in the next book.

Well, you elaborated but I don't really think there was much need.  Historians may divide history into periods for ease of reference or to distinguish chunks of time where some systems, ideas or trends are common and those where they are not but there is of course huge overlap and such distinctions are fuzzy lines and messy anyway (technological development totally absent from Planetos being key to most of them).  There is no rule that says GRRM can't use LF the way he does in his imaginary world because he has many influences and The Wars of The Roses / late medieval period forms the key influence but is not a straightjacket for his world that does not need to accurately resemble the period (long and indefinite) or place (impossible as both fictional and fantastical) that either you may think that it should or that he is trying to recreate.  It's up to him is my point and you may find LF impermissible based on your view of the middle ages and how GRRM's world should work but I don't agree or think it would matter even if LF were fifty years "too early" to meet your threshold for "realism" (even if it were the case that no smart but relatively unimportant men achieved positions of power and influence through patronage).  We just see this entirely differently: it's why I liked Springwatch's GRRM quote rather than any disappointment about the lack of detail regarding the machinery of government or bureaucracy.  LF's actions with the power he is afforded by his patrons and his chaotic destruction (unnoticed by anyone) seem far more unlikely and problematic than his actual promotion, always as a useful tool of a more powerful individual as it is.

LF's "rise" is a textbook example of a man of useful talents enjoying patronage and this is the sole reason he rises as he does: Lysa via Jon Arryn promotes him and by the time of Jon Arryn's death Robert is used to having him in place.  Nothing to do with centralization.  Mismanaging the realm's finances means mismanaging the Court's finances which leads to loans from the Iron Bank, The Faith and The Lannisters.  This is purely serving Robert's needs, not some independent economic or financial policy from an independent minister.  In the medieval period this sort of royal profligacy led to forced loans from merchants or bankers, payment of which could of course be forgone; in the early modern period (in England) it led to conflicts between late Elizabethan and, far more significantly, Stuart parliaments about granting the monarch taxes (or customary duties like Ship Money).  The use of the loans and the problems Cersei's non-payment to the Iron Bank will likely cause seem fine to me (though maybe unrealistic of the powers of medieval banking dynasties in your view) and I don't know what detail we would want on a centralized / decentralized financial system and how this would improve the story.

LF achieves promotion and stays on The Small Council through Lysa/Jon Arryn's patronage, has a dodgy period when Ned is appointed but makes himself useful to Ned while he is still finding his feet (except....not really), sucks up to Joffrey and makes himself useful to Joffrey, Tyrion, Tywin and Cersei.  When his patrons / dupes are not in power he is smart enough to be off while Mace seeks to put one of his own family in his place - which Cersei counters with the insignificant but wealthy Giles of Rosby to counter the Tyrells (just as Tywin restored Pycelle to prevent The Citadel naming a Tyrell to his post).  I imagine you find this more historically credible for the pseudo-period but LF is promoted as Arryn's man (Arryn having no family to promote) and morphs into the Lannister's man: as with all patronage systems, an attack on the placeman is an attack on the patron so LF is left alone.

I don't know who Edwell Celtigar is and I haven't read the pseudo-histories you mention but it seems GRRM's attempts to give a rich tapestry of history and backstory to his main sequence novels and flesh out his world is surely more valid than deciding to "leave the gaps in worldbuilding to readers".  Creating an entire world and its history from your own imagination is bound to be less than perfect or seamlessly fit together so it feels like people are expecting too much.  Incidentally someone else compared Tolkien's worldbuilding more favourably with GRRM's with this "less is more" approach but I don't agree with that either: it's the author's world, not ours, and readers of course highlight the lack of elements they want included, whether religion or bureaucracy, which becomes very similar to criticism of the plot for not following the course the reader would prefer it to.

[sifth]

That magical letter from the world book, that convinced Aegon not to invade Dorne. It might literally be the worst thing GRRM has ever written in my book. I felt it was like George couldn't think of a logical reason for Aegon to give up his conquest of Dorne, so he just invented this whole magical letter thing, that we the readers will never get an answer to, "but isn't it so interesting, that it convinced Aegon to give up on Dorne", lol

[Aldarion]

4 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

I don't know who Edwell Celtigar is and I haven't read the pseudo-histories you mention but it seems GRRM's attempts to give a rich tapestry of history and backstory to his main sequence novels and flesh out his world is surely more valid than deciding to "leave the gaps in worldbuilding to readers".  Creating an entire world and its history from your own imagination is bound to be less than perfect or seamlessly fit together so it feels like people are expecting too much.  Incidentally someone else compared Tolkien's worldbuilding more favourably with GRRM's with this "less is more" approach but I don't agree with that either: it's the author's world, not ours, and readers of course highlight the lack of elements they want included, whether religion or bureaucracy, which becomes very similar to criticism of the plot for not following the course the reader would prefer it to.

Except when done properly, "less is more" approach truly gives you more. Firstly, world needs to capture reader's imagination, and if author provides all the details, all he really achieves is to strip away any possibility of that happening. Secondly, when a world is built properly, there is no need for explaining everything, because many things can be inferred from other details even if not outright stated.

Basically, details are less important than the basics. So long as the foundations and the skeleton are solid, readers can fill in the gaps in the facade. But if they are not, then any closer look will cause the entire facade to collapse.

[astarkchoice]

23 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

And in other cases, the silver mines the Greatjon seized (which are technically still underwater) barely put a dent.

Yeah his unlimited wealth in a world with interconnected banks erc means essentialy had tywin enough time he could have faced down all.of westeros! Between assasins, sellsword companies, sellsails , slave armies of all quality types, and just plain bribing enough minor nobles or essosi power players  !!

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

14 hours ago, sifth said:

That magical letter from the world book, that convinced Aegon not to invade Dorne. It might literally be the worst thing GRRM has ever written in my book. I felt it was like George couldn't think of a logical reason for Aegon to give up his conquest of Dorne, so he just invented this whole magical letter thing, that we the readers will never get an answer to, "but isn't it so interesting, that it convinced Aegon to give up on Dorne", lol

Well, we know from F&B that Aegon himself was tired of fighting Dorne and only continued doing it because Visenya and others pushed him on. It's very possible that whatever was In that letter gave him the off ramp towards peace that he wanted. 
 

Edited January 28 by Takiedevushkikakzvezdy

[SeanF]

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Except when done properly, "less is more" approach truly gives you more. Firstly, world needs to capture reader's imagination, and if author provides all the details, all he really achieves is to strip away any possibility of that happening. Secondly, when a world is built properly, there is no need for explaining everything, because many things can be inferred from other details even if not outright stated.

Basically, details are less important than the basics. So long as the foundations and the skeleton are solid, readers can fill in the gaps in the facade. But if they are not, then any closer look will cause the entire facade to collapse.

One who does do the world building mostly effectively is Andrej Sapkowski.

One little detail I love is the banker who deduces that war is coming, because the price of gold and silver has been falling, relative to the price of gems.  He concludes that rich people are converting their gold and silver into gems, because they’re easier to flee with.

[the trees have eyes]

16 hours ago, sifth said:

That magical letter from the world book, that convinced Aegon not to invade Dorne.

Unless it somehow links in to prophecy (The Daynes, Starfall, The Sword of The Morning, the reason for the Targ conquest in the first place, The Three Heads of the Dragon, Rhaegar and Arthur Dayne being besties, etc) it feels contrived.  That it's deliberately unexplained could be a wait and see a la Howland Reed or simply a closing off of a plot line that GRRM decided to drop.  If the latter he has to leave it vague because he doesn't have a good reason.

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Firstly, world needs to capture reader's imagination, and if author provides all the details, all he really achieves is to strip away any possibility of that happening. Secondly, when a world is built properly, there is no need for explaining everything, because many things can be inferred from other details even if not outright stated.

Basically, details are less important than the basics. So long as the foundations and the skeleton are solid, readers can fill in the gaps in the facade.

I agree with all of that.  It's an underlying given that the author can't and shouldn't try to do explain everything mechanically.  However, re the italics, the problem seems to be when people compare GRRM world with some form of medieval Europe and say "that's not realistic".  If it's internally inconsistent then there's a problem - though it may be a molehill rather than a mountain depending on a person's view but that's different to eg. complaints like lack of detail on religions, inter-faith conflict or the machinery of government.  Which is when it becomes subjective. 

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Except when done properly, "less is more" approach truly gives you more.

But if they are not, then any closer look will cause the entire facade to collapse.

I think this is subjective depending on the reader's view.  I don't disagree with the principle behind either statement but I think the writing has to be pretty bad for the second statement to be true and it's not in GRRM's case.  The first strikes me as pure personal preference as, for example, I'm glad he doesn't try and explain magic or Godhood. I'm unconvinced as filling in the gaps with societies or cultures requires the reader to draw on real world analogies to bulk things out in a way not required of magic (people are real, magic is an artificial construct) and the author may not want that for political reasons or simply because it's not what he has in mind for his universe.  Re the first statement, maybe less on food and heraldry but these obviously don't give us internal inconsistencies or lack of realism just, as with the travelogues, a bit of bloat that could have been trimmed.

[Aldarion]

51 minutes ago, the trees have eyes said:

I agree with all of that.  It's an underlying given that the author can't and shouldn't try to do explain everything mechanically.  However, re the italics, the problem seems to be when people compare GRRM world with some form of medieval Europe and say "that's not realistic".  If it's internally inconsistent then there's a problem - though it may be a molehill rather than a mountain depending on a person's view but that's different to eg. complaints like lack of detail on religions, inter-faith conflict or the machinery of government.  Which is when it becomes subjective. 

Literally the only reason why people do that are various statements - by media and also by George Martin himself - which praise Westeros for its "gritty, realistic" worldbuilding.

George Martin himself has said that he wants to be realistic. So holding him up to that standard is perfectly logical, in a way that it wouldn't be for e.g. Warhammer, Tolkien or other stories and authors that are explicitly heroic and fantastical.

58 minutes ago, the trees have eyes said:

I think this is subjective depending on the reader's view.  I don't disagree with the principle behind either statement but I think the writing has to be pretty bad for the second statement to be true and it's not in GRRM's case.  The first strikes me as pure personal preference as, for example, I'm glad he doesn't try and explain magic or Godhood. I'm unconvinced as filling in the gaps with societies or cultures requires the reader to draw on real world analogies to bulk things out in a way not required of magic (people are real, magic is an artificial construct) and the author may not want that for political reasons or simply because it's not what he has in mind for his universe.  Re the first statement, maybe less on food and heraldry but these obviously don't give us internal inconsistencies or lack of realism just, as with the travelogues, a bit of bloat that could have been trimmed.

I don't know. I started nitpicking apart Martin's worldbuilding when I read his Essosi chapters and went "this is bullshit". A series of illogical and unrealistic aspects and events basically caused me to lose any interest in Essos and Daenaerys' storyline. But then again, I am hardly your average fantasy reader.

Magic or Godhood aren't something you should try to explain in the first place. What matters there is solely that you reman consistent in how magic effects the world itself, but magic itself should be inherently beyond understanding, else it stops being really magical.

When it comes to society and culture however, what you really need to have is enough of it known that characters' actions within the society make sense, and that there is a sense of consistency in terms of characters' behavior and consequences they may face. So author needs to have rather deep knowledge of the society in order to create this causal relationship, yet it is often not necessary for either characters or the reader to know much beyond the surface level. "Filling in the gaps" I spoke of is really something that only people obsessed with the work would do.

Like I did with these articles on Gondor:

https://warfantasy.wordpress.com/2023/11/09/military-organization-of-gondor-expanded/

https://fantasyview.wordpress.com/2020/09/21/tax-policy-of-gondor/

(I am bringing these up because latter article was inspired specifically by Martin's comment on Tolkien's worldbuilding).

But vast majority of things I talk about there are not something that matters either to the reader or to the story itself. Does it matter that we know exactly how army of Gondor is recruited? No. Yet nature of Gondor's military does matter in that it determines relationship between Denethor (and later Aragorn) and commanders of the provinces. What can the steward / king demand from the provinces? How much leeway do provincial commanders have?

To go back to Martin, bad worldbuilding of Essos matters because Essosi societies (specifically, Slaver's Bay and Dothraki) do not really follow any logical rules. This means that Martin has to basically explain everything to the reader, and even then, explanations don't really work. Most importantly however, it is impossible to predict the future actions and consequences, impossible to feel the stakes. And such lack of consequentiality can easily cause reader to stop caring - as has in fact happened to me. At this point, I don't give a flying floppity as to what happens in Essos - Martin can nuke the whole place off the map of Planetos and I won't consider it a major narrative loss.

[Ran]

15 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

George Martin himself has said that he wants to be realistic.

You are citing this quote, which is not about worldbuilding at all:

Quote

Well… I want my readers to be emotionally involved in what they read. I don’t like to read from the distance and I want them to be really involved, and if scary stuff is gonna happen; I want them to be scared. Beyond the way to do that I want to state that everybody can die. Mine is not a predictable book like so many others, where you know the hero is safe. No matter how much trouble the hero gets in, what odds he seems to be facing; he’s gonna come through, cause he... he is John Carter, he is the hero. That’s not the way in real life and I want to be realistic in my books, so no one is safe in the books. My goal as a writer has always been to create a strong fiction stories. I want my readers to remember my books and the great time they had while they were sitting in a comfortable armchair. 

 

[KingAerys_II]

GRRM took the concept of kinslayer from Tolkien works , that had an influence on him, his statements about plot holes in Tolkien works have no sense , he should focus on his work , more than 12 years to finish a book that is not the last one

Edited January 29 by KingAerys_II

[sifth]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

You are citing this quote, which is not about worldbuilding at all:

 

Yet aside from Ned, has a hero ever got into a tight spot in this series and not come out alive? There have been a lot, of fake out deaths; Davos twice, Brienne, Arya twice, Asha and so on. I mean the only one I can honestly think of is Jon Snow, assuming he doesn't come back in the Winds of Winter, like many members in this community believe. I wonder why GRRM is so against killing POV's in their own chapters; aside from prologue and epilogue ones that is.