Bad Worldbuilding in ASoIaF

[Alester Florent]

2 hours ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

There should be....so many dialects. Like, every single Kingdom should have their own dialect, and then on top of that people from the hinterlands of that area should be hard to understand. I don't know how big Westeros is supposed to be exactly, but a quick search tells me there are 121 languages in India and 131-195 in the Philippines. Now, I did choose specifically two countries that I knew had a lot of languages....but that is how places not recently conquered and assimilated to some dominant culture usually are (the North was never really assimilated to southern culture, and neither were the Iron Islands completely assimilated to mainland culture. And of course Dorne had a whole other people show up, and apparently not only not leave an impact by having multiple languages spoken there..but not even a dialect developing). Even in China, a relatively (comparatively) homogenous culture that has continually been united as one state for a very long time has 8-10 dialects. 

However, I think GRRM did this to make things easier on himself honestly. Can you imagine how hard some parts would be if no one could understand each other, lol. Like, another one. Daenerys kind of flawlessly understands...everyone all the time in Essos, which seems.....highly unlikely, lol. There would be language issues even if she is a language genius, that just aren't discussed. But, again, I think this makes sense. Honestly, I'm okay with it. I don't particularly want to read about translators showing up constantly, lol, which would be necessary to make a lot of things work. Although I am now imaging Eddard with a thick and impossible to understand Sottish accent, and Cersei doesn't even know what he is saying half the time, so he gets away with it, lol. 

Language barriers are a major issue in almost all fantasy and sci-fi, I think, because you don't want your characters having to talk through interpreters all the time but having characters be complete polyglots isn't all that realistic either. Then again, the modern world, and the modern Anglophone world in particular, is unusually monoglot for the most part: I believe linguistic consensus is that the majority of people historically were multilingual, and indeed in many countries today bilingualism at minimum is common if not the norm.

I do however also wonder if this kind of thing is at times something that Americans instinctively struggle more than Europeans to get their heads around.

The comparison between Westeros and South America is interesting in a linguistic as well as a geographical sense, though. Linguistic diversity doesn't necessarily map to land area or population mass (there are, I think, more distinct langauges, and language famillies, in New Guinea than in China, India and the whole of Europe put together), but there is often some kind of correlation. But you can walk from Cape Horn to El Paso speaking only Spanish and not have any problems. While it might not be completely impossible to pull off something across a similar distance in Eurasia (probably speaking Russian) it'd be much harder to find an appropriate route.

While pockets of other language-speakers exist, of course, nevertheless across the whole of the American continents, the people who do not speak one of English, Spanish or Portuguese fluently are very small minorities. And while there are some different dialects in play, the differences in American Spanish pale in comparison with the diversity of languages in Spain itself: an Argentinian has no problem talking to a Mexican in Spanish, compared with the mutual unintelligibility of Castilian and Catalan. I would comment on the relative diversity of English dialects in Britain vs North America, too, but experience has taught me that's a quick way to start an argument.

But this didn't happen organically: it's the product of assertive colonisation in the early modern and modern period, with development restricted by a combination of central government, printing, and rapid communications (including more recently, telecommunications). In Westeros, the Andals clearly brought their language with them and that does explain the prevalence of Andalese south (but not north) of the Neck, but if the Andals have been there for 2,000 years or so in multiple kingdoms you would expect further linguistic evolution and diversification, even to the point of unintelligibility, as with the Romance or Slavic languages.

[Aebram]

14 hours ago, sifth said:

I still find it funny that GRRM constantly makes jokes about Aragorn’s tax policy in LOtR’s, yet completely fails at the economics of his own universe. 

I don't recall his exact words, but I think the point of the joke was not that Tolkien got it wrong. The George was saying that it doesn't matter, and neither author deserves criticism for it.

Let's remember that this story is a fantasy. It contains enough historical details that it sometimes seems like historical fiction. But it's not; it's played by different rules.

It seems that most of the criticisms of the worldbuilding refer to big-picture subjects like politics, economics, culture, language, etc. When the story zooms in to focus on the characters -- the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the way they work, travel, and generally go about their lives -- it's more accurate.

Some of you clearly have quite a bit of expertise about real-world history. I admire that, and I always enjoy reading your comments and anecdotes. But your situation here reminds me of something I've heard about musicians who have perfect pitch. Their talent is also a burden, because even tiny errors of tuning are very noticeable to them. It prevents them from enjoying a lot of music that sounds just fine to the rest of us.

Also, worldbuilding with such a high level of historical accuracy surely takes a lot more time, because of all the research, and the need to fit the plot to what is possible in the real world. How much longer do you want to wait for the next book? Be careful what you wish for.  :^)

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by Aebram

[SaffronLady]

12 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

Is anybody even there? Andalos just happens to fade out of history after the Andals head to Westeros.

There were never any Frankish Christians in Jerusalem before the Crusades, doesn't stop them from going there.

[Aldarion]

6 hours ago, Aebram said:

But your situation here reminds me of something I've heard about musicians who have perfect pitch. Their talent is also a burden, because even tiny errors of tuning are very noticeable to them. It prevents them from enjoying a lot of music that sounds just fine to the rest of us.

That is basically how I feel reading ASoIaF...

6 hours ago, Aebram said:

Also, worldbuilding with such a high level of historical accuracy surely takes a lot more time, because of all the research, and the need to fit the plot to what is possible in the real world. How much longer do you want to wait for the next book? Be careful what you wish for.  :^)

 

I am of the opinion that detailed worldbuilding early makes later writing easier because it is clearer what may or may not happen, so coming up with solutions is not as difficult - more consistency means less contradictions, making navigation easier.

So had Martin actually properly built his world from the start, he may well have finished the books by now.

[Ran]

6 hours ago, Aebram said:

I don't recall his exact words, but I think the point of the joke was not that Tolkien got it wrong.

Indeed. People persist in thinking George was talking about the picayune matters of ruling a realm as if they themselves were important, whereas hew as making a point about how the "goodness" of some person like Aragorn might be challenged by having to decide how to deal with such things, where the only choices that are not binary choices between good and evil but rather will have some sort of negative impact. 

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

12 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Chaining together ill-disciplined soldiers was rare, but not unknown. Battle of Chains is referred to as such because Sassanid soldiers in this battle were linked together with chains.

Maybe. Societies were known to remain static for a very long time (see: China, Japan). But I do agree that Westeros has remained static for too long.

Agreed. Rather than feudal society, we should be looking at something akin to the Roman Empire.

Considering we are mostly dealing with nobility, that shouldn't be an issue at all. Up until relatively late, nobility of basically entire Europe used Latin as their lingua franca. So what is preventing Westeros from having dozens of languages while nobility all use High Valyrian?

And if you have High Valyrian being similarly prevalent in Essos, again, problem solved.

Hmm, I think Essos is Eurasia sized and Westeros is South American sized I guess (according to people here). Europe is comparatively tiny. There was no such language common across the nobility of all of Asia. Also, the nobility talk to commoners a LOT in these books. Most of Arya’s chapters are around commoners for example. 

Also, while as certainly the Crownlands, the Vale, the Riverlands, the Reach, and the Stormlands have cultural connection (perhaps similar to Europe), I am not actually sure if Dorme, the Iron Islands, or the North make sense to be having that kind of connection. And although Europe and say West Asia/North Africa had shared noble languages….the same is mot always true in orher areas, particularly if thise areas have large cultural or religious differences. 
 

Also languages can be hard. Romance languages have a lot in common, but realistically the North and Dorne in particular would probably be using languages that are totally different from Andalos. I live in Korea, and althogu many Koreans learn Chinese or Japanese or English from an early age, especially rich kids, they are nit speaking those languages fluently, because unlike romance languages, the differences between Korean and those other languages are quite wide (and so learning the language to a fluent level is quite difficult). 

I think honestly realistically in Dorne, Tge Iron Islands, and the North, there should have been seperate languages that survived rhe coming of the Andals (or in Dorne’s case, came with the Rhyonish). Realistically thise languages would continue as the primary first language of those peoples. Meanwhile, in the South, new languages or dialects would pop up in each of those Kingdoms. However, as you said, one language (say tge Common tongue) might be easy for Nobles to learn from the non-excluded areas. Still Northerners, Dornish, and Iton Islanders would have signifigant troyble learning/becoming fluent in the Common Tongue. Also, you’d probably have push back from some peoole who didn’t want to learn the invaders tongue. Say the Moutain Clans in rhe Vale, I could see them 100% speaking the Old Tongue and refusing to learn the Common Tongue. 

If we we t over to Essos, there wiuld be even more issues. The Free Cities might share High Valaryian…but reaistically other places like Qarth of Slaver’ Bay might struggle with learning the language. The Dothraki woukd have translators probably at all times. You know actially, the only place in the books where GRRM covers the language barrier is in the Free Cities, which I think is semi close to accurate to how it should have been in Westeros as well. But again, that would make the books much harder to read lol. 

[The hairy bear]

On 11/13/2023 at 6:56 PM, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

However, I think GRRM did this to make things easier on himself honestly. Can you imagine how hard some parts would be if no one could understand each other, lol. Like, another one.

I don't think having different languages would complicate Martin's history that much. All the nobles from the North would speak Andalish correctly (particularly the Stark kids, having an Andal mother and being educated by septons). Davos is an old smugler, so could be familiar enough with Firstmannish to negotiate at the Meerman's court (and in any case, the idiotic Freys would be monoglots, so the conversations would be in Andalish anyway.

The only place where communication may be a little bit tricky is at the Wall. Recruits from the South, specially the lowborn, could not be able to communicate with people from the North. But having a bilingual Wall would not be that hard to manage.

Edited November 15, 2023 by The hairy bear

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

36 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

That is basically how I feel reading ASoIaF...

I am of the opinion that detailed worldbuilding early makes later writing easier because it is clearer what may or may not happen, so coming up with solutions is not as difficult - more consistency means less contradictions, making navigation easier.

So had Martin actually properly built his world from the start, he may well have finished the books by now.

I mean…I am enjoying complaining about the world building…but honestly, GRRM is probably on the good side overall when it comes to worldbuilding. I’ve read quite a bit of fantasy and sci fi, and the world building can be pretty lazy or even inconsistent in a lot of the books. I think GRRM did a pretty good job honestly, even if I have complaints. 

In comparison, say Wheel of Time…a fairly famous series, I think the world building in those books is way less consistent, requires one to just skip over some areas that make no sense (the fact that there is literalky like “morally” good places vs “morally” bad places, something also common to Tolkein that people are complimenting here would be a good example). 

Yes, there are some authors better at world building than GRRM, but there are also a lot (A LOT) much worse at it.  Heck I’ve read books set in the modern day which still manage to fail at world building compared to GRRM. For example, people who create societies with no subcultures, or with a complete absence of any prejudice, or ones that classism is prevalent but all the poor people are just kind of okay with it. 

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

5 minutes ago, The hairy bear said:

I don't think having different languages would complicate Martin's history that much. All the nobles from the North would speak Andalish correctly (particularly the Stark kids, having and Andal mother and being educated by septons). Davos is an old smugler, so could be familiar enough with Firstmannish to negotiate at the Meerman's court (and in any case, the idiotic Freys would be monoglots, so the conversations would be in Andalish anyway.

The only place where communication may be a little bit tricky is at the wall. Recruits from the South, specially the lowborn, could not be able to communicate with people from the North. But having a bilingual Wall would not be that hard to manage.

Again, I live in a country where every child learns English from the age of 5. It is extremely hard to communicate with them, because it is not as easy to become fluent in another language if that language has limited ties to the language in question. Come to Korea and then try to just speak English everywhere. Only go to rich areas where most childeen not only learned English in school, but also a private school, and also had a private tutor, and watch as it is still wildly difficult to communicate. lol

Again, even when people speak a second language in East and Southeast Asian, they just are not fluent. They have accents, tjey make grammar mistakes. And it goes the other way around to for Western people learning East or Southeast Asian languages. I have never been to Europe, but I have met Europeans and I’ve seen how well they can speak English, so I understand where this idea comes from. But European languages have easy to to learn and similar grammar and pronunciation to each other and most share an alphabet. The Old Tongue I would guess would be not only different from Andalos, but probably different from every language in Essos/Westeros (language isolate). Rhyonish could maybe share a root with Andalos, although we have no idea either way, and they have been separate from each other for a very long time. After all Korea, China, and Japan are all right next to each other, but Japanese and Korean are essentially language isolates, so Rhyonish and Andalosian might have nothing in common. 

Edited November 14, 2023 by Lord of Raventree Hall

[SaffronLady]

12 minutes ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

The Free Cities might share High Valaryian…but reaistically other places like Qarth of Slaver’ Bay might struggle with learning the language.

Qarth and Slaver's Bay highborn folks might be able to say heavily accented High Valyrian as a sort of lingua franca since their customers - the Free Cities - all speak some version of it. Nevertheless, that does not explain how slaves who engage in manual labor (which implies they should have no need nor chance to learn HV) just become able to talk directly to the Free City people, much less the Westerosi. I think that has happened in AFFC but I'm not sure where exactly.

On 11/13/2023 at 4:15 AM, Craving Peaches said:

The North would have no reason to speak the Common Tongue without the spread of the Faith.

The politcal need to engage in basic diplomacy with the south? But the North is so isolationist this need too seems weak.

On 11/13/2023 at 4:04 AM, Ran said:

It's not described. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Fine, my description error. It shows up so little it seems like it does not exist.

On 11/13/2023 at 5:54 AM, Ran said:

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. 

Not a wonder we barely know what made Littlefinger so powerful he could now attempt to control not one but two dioceses of the Seven Kingdoms. We could write off both Master of Laws Renly and Master of Ships Stannis' power to feudal institutions and their personal connections instead of their court positions, but the inclusion of LF while not including why he is so powerful is something I am complaining about in a thread rather explicitly about bad worldbuilding.

[Craving Peaches]

8 minutes ago, SaffronLady said:

The politcal need to engage in basic diplomacy with the south?

That wouldn't explain why the average Northern peasant speaks Common Tongue though.

[Ran]

6 minutes ago, SaffronLady said:

but the inclusion of LF while not including why he is so powerful

He massively increased the crown's revenues, became indispensable thereby, proceeded to fill the wide bureaucracy connected to his remit with his cronies, then played a key role in forging the Tyrell-Lannister alliance, leading to his elevation to a great lord, which then made him a suitable spouse to the regent of the Vale who had been his illicit lover.

It's all spelled out very clearly.

[SaffronLady]

4 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

That wouldn't explain why the average Northern peasant speaks Common Tongue though.

The North is so isolationist it doesn't explain why the average Northern highborn speaks Common with mutual intelligibility with the southrons. I can't get through with the Japanese using English when I went there, for example, it took guesswork and hand gestures on both sides to understand each other.

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

He massively increased the crown's revenues, became indispensable thereby, proceeded to fill the wide bureaucracy connected to his remit with his cronies

This section being oversimplified is my primary point. The rest, being feudal mechanics, are relatively straightforward.

But then again GRRM glosses over sieges unless necessary, clearly he understands bureaucratic politicking, like sieges, is a niche fandom.

I am having an issue because I sit in this niche.

[Aldarion]

42 minutes ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

I mean…I am enjoying complaining about the world building…but honestly, GRRM is probably on the good side overall when it comes to worldbuilding. I’ve read quite a bit of fantasy and sci fi, and the world building can be pretty lazy or even inconsistent in a lot of the books. I think GRRM did a pretty good job honestly, even if I have complaints. 

In comparison, say Wheel of Time…a fairly famous series, I think the world building in those books is way less consistent, requires one to just skip over some areas that make no sense (the fact that there is literalky like “morally” good places vs “morally” bad places, something also common to Tolkein that people are complimenting here would be a good example). 

Yes, there are some authors better at world building than GRRM, but there are also a lot (A LOT) much worse at it.  Heck I’ve read books set in the modern day which still manage to fail at world building compared to GRRM. For example, people who create societies with no subcultures, or with a complete absence of any prejudice, or ones that classism is prevalent but all the poor people are just kind of okay with it. 

I don't think "morally good vs morally bad" thing is a bad thing for worldbuilding. I mean, there IS objective good and evil in the world, and if you can justify why a certain place would be objectively morally bad... by all means, go for it!

And just because evil is sometimes necessary doesn't mean it ceases to be evil. Act of murder is evil, even if it may sometimes be necessary (e.g. in self-defense or war).

Problem with GRRM is that, intentionally or by accident, he has created an expectation of "realism" in his world. I have seen people writing how "gritty and realistic" Westeros is. I have never seen such statements being levelled at Wheel of Time, or even Lord of the Rings. And because of that expectation, Martin is in position to spread or even create numerous misconceptions of how Middle Ages really were. Pop culture is in part educational, and thus should not be exempt from historical accuracy - especially when author himself has promoted it.

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

3 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I don't think "morally good vs morally bad" thing is a bad thing for worldbuilding. I mean, there IS objective good and evil in the world, and if you can justify why a certain place would be objectively morally bad... by all means, go for it!

And just because evil is sometimes necessary doesn't mean it ceases to be evil. Act of murder is evil, even if it may sometimes be necessary (e.g. in self-defense or war).

Problem with GRRM is that, intentionally or by accident, he has created an expectation of "realism" in his world. I have seen people writing how "gritty and realistic" Westeros is. I have never seen such statements being levelled at Wheel of Time, or even Lord of the Rings. And because of that expectation, Martin is in position to spread or even create numerous misconceptions of how Middle Ages really were. Pop culture is in part educational, and thus should not be exempt from historical accuracy - especially when author himself has promoted it.

Well, in my opinion, it is more realistic than other works. As a history major, I’d say it is better than…90% of other works and that includes historical fiction that I’ve read. The truth is the vast majority of fans…wouldn’t read a book overly bogged down in the details. There wouldn’t be a fanbase ready to read that kind of work. A lot of the things GRRM simplifies I think relate to his desire to focus on either interpersonal conflict (usually with some politics involved) or the conflict within his POV characters’ heads. I don’t think GRRM has ever claimed to be like the most accurate wordbuilding author of all time, but he could specifically choose authors and say he is more realistic then them…because he is. 

Oh your part about some places being morally superior to others - That is only your opinion, and any historian who wrote that way…would be a bad historian. Often when authors simplify things to “good” and “evil” places, they are well…simplifying. Making it easy for their readers to cheer for the protaganists. And no I don’t think that is “good” worldbuilding. It’s lazy. 

I’ll give you an example from real life. A lot of Western people come to East Asia, and feel morally superior when it comes to sexism as compared to the local cultures. This goes for both Westerners who lean right or lean left. However, it can NEVER be that simple. For example, catcalling is rare here, public safety when it comes to walking home in public is much higher (Most Korean women don’t even understand how dangerous Western cities would be for them to be walking home alone all the time). Gender roles are also less restrictive in many ways hen they are in Western cultures. Women and men often have hobbies that overlap and there is less negative reaction to either gender having a hobby that is common amongst the other gender. None of this is to say that there are still not massive issues when it comes to sexism, just that it is far more complicated than Western people want to paint it (with Western countries being consistently "less" sexist/morally superior when it comes to sexism than East Asian countries from their viewpoints).

(Random note : i also think it is hilarious when “traditional” western men come here (to Korea) looking for a wife, and get turned down by EVERYONE, as no Korean woman has interest in some super sexist Western man lol. Those men usually spend their time here either painfully single or if they are handsome, having short term relationships where the women always break it off once they realize how sexist the dudes are. Korean women who specifically target Western men for dating often do that directly because they are LOOKING FOR more progressive, feminist-leaning men. If they wanted to date a traditional sexist man, they’d just date with men who speak their own language lol.)

My point is : It is complicated in real life. A realistic world building will be….complicated. You can’t just randomly blast one culture as morally superior and expect that to.be realistic. It’s quite simply…not. To be blunt, I found Tolkein constantly simplistic. Yes, some aspects of his worldbuilding were great…but others were ridiculous (How exactly do Orcs…feed themselves while living in absolute desolation for example). So yes, when reading ASOIAF, yes, I feel relieved to have more layers of realism then when reading Lord of the Rings. That doesn’t mean GRRM is perfect,…just more realistic than some others. 
 

Edited November 14, 2023 by Lord of Raventree Hall

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Well, in my opinion, it is more realistic than other works. As a history major, I’d say it is better than…90% of other works and that includes historical fiction that I’ve read. The truth is the vast majority of fans…wouldn’t read a book overly bogged down in the details. There wouldn’t be a fanbase ready to read that kind of work. A lot of the things GRRM simplifies I think relate to his desire to focus on either interpersonal conflict (usually with some politics involved) or the conflict within his POV characters’ heads. I don’t think GRRM has ever claimed to be like the most accurate wordbuilding author of all time, but he could specifically choose authors and say he is more realistic then them…because he is. 

Oh your part about some places being morally superior to others - That is only your opinion, and any historian who wrote that way…would be a bad historian. Often when authors simplify things to “good” and “evil” places, they are well…simplifying. Making it easy for their readers to cheer for the protaganists. And no I don’t think that is “good” worldbuilding. It’s lazy. 

I’ll give you an example from real life. A lot of Western people come to East Asia, and feel morally superior when it comes to sexism as compared to the local cultures. This goes for both Westerners who lean right or lean left. However, it can NEVER be that simple. For example, catcalling is rare here, public safety when it comes to walking home in public is much higher (Most Korean women don’t even understand how dangerous Western cities would be for them to be walking home alone all the time). Gender roles are also less restrictive in many ways hen they are in Western cultures. Women and men often have hobbies that overlap and there is less negative reaction to either gender having a hobby that is common amongst the other gender. None of this is to say that there are still not massive issues when it comes to sexism. Marital violence is commonplace, sexualization of women is extreme in media, and prostitution is super commonplace (with those women often being treated HORRIBLE by their pimps and customers alike with limited to almost no legal protections for them).

(Random note : i also think it is hilarious when “traditional” western men come here looking for a wife, and get turned down by EVERYONE, as no Korean woman has interest in some super sexist Western man lol. Those men usually spend their time here either painfully single or if they are handsome, having short term relationships where the women always break it off once they realize how sexist the dudes are. Korean women who specifically target Western men for dating often do that directly because they are LOOKING FOR more progressive, feminist-leaning men. If they wanted to date a traditional sexist man, they’d just date with men who speak their own language lol.)

My poing is : It is complicated in real life. A realistic world building will be….complicated. You can’t just randomly blast one culture as morally superior and expect that to.be realistic. It’s quite simply…not. To be blunt, I found Tolkein constantly simplistic. Yes, some aspects of his worldbuilding were great…but others were ridiculous (How exactly do Orcs…feed themselves while living in absolute desolation for example). So yes, when reading ASOIAF, yes, I feel relieved to have more layers of realism then when reading Lord of the Rings. That doesn’t mean GRRM is perfect,…just more realistic than some others. 
 

I think that most social systems in Martin's world are pretty bad, being based upon high levels of cruelty and exploitation.  There are degrees, however.  Braavos has a huge gap between rich and poor, a powerful cult of assassins for hire, and casual murder at the hands of duellists is normative.

But, it seems better than Westeros, where the lords have power of life and death over the smallfolk, and even the best of them, have very few qualms about leading the smallfolk to war and killing them, in order to advance family interests.  

But, that in turn, seems better than Eastern Slaveocracies, where 80% of the population are chattels.

Nor is everyone who lives in this crapsack world necessarily a bad person.

[sifth]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

Indeed. People persist in thinking George was talking about the picayune matters of ruling a realm as if they themselves were important, whereas hew as making a point about how the "goodness" of some person like Aragorn might be challenged by having to decide how to deal with such things, where the only choices that are not binary choices between good and evil but rather will have some sort of negative impact. 

He keeps bringing up that tax policy joke. It’s in nearly every interview with him. You’d think he’d at least show some effort when it comes to his own universe’s economics, if that’s his takeaway from reading Return of the King. 

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, Aldarion said:

That is basically how I feel reading ASoIaF...

I am of the opinion that detailed worldbuilding early makes later writing easier because it is clearer what may or may not happen, so coming up with solutions is not as difficult - more consistency means less contradictions, making navigation easier.

So had Martin actually properly built his world from the start, he may well have finished the books by now.

I wonder if something to do with the delay, is how he reconciles the Starks being heroes of the tale, and his own political views, with their ultimately being rulers of a cruel and unjust society, and gaining that position through treachery and murder.

I do find myself wondering if the show's ending hit a lot of the main plot points, but tried (and failed) to make it into a happy ending, when it should really be seen as a grimdark ending.

Tyrion, riddled with sexual jealousy, like Iago, persuades Jon to murder Daenerys (sexual jealousy was hinted at in the show, but he had to remain St. Tyrion);  a creepy, malevolent, teenager becomes king.  Sansa uses the methods of LF and Cersei to gain the North.

[Nevets]

If issues like lack of language diversity, absence of visible beaurocracy, poor economics and the like are the worst you can come up with with respect to world building, I'd say he's doing pretty well.  Lots of fantasy worlds I've seen are so skeletal or inconsistent these wouldn't even be considerations.  And he's pretty good when it comes to personal interactions, gender issues, treatment of children, how a feudal system really works and the like, which many fantasies handle somewhat badly.

In any event, I think it is well known among fans that world building is not his strong suit.  Creating interesting characters and situations is where he excels.  World building, especially early on, doesn't seem to have been as much of a priority, though even so it is still better developed than most, though Essos is a bit of a mess.  I get the impression he has little interest in that part of the world and it shows.

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, Nevets said:

If issues like lack of language diversity, absence of visible beaurocracy, poor economics and the like are the worst you can come up with with respect to world building, I'd say he's doing pretty well.  Lots of fantasy worlds I've seen are so skeletal or inconsistent these wouldn't even be considerations.  And he's pretty good when it comes to personal interactions, gender issues, treatment of children, how a feudal system really works and the like, which many fantasies handle somewhat badly.

In any event, I think it is well known among fans that world building is not his strong suit.  Creating interesting characters and situations is where he excels.  World building, especially early on, doesn't seem to have been as much of a priority, though even so it is still better developed than most, though Essos is a bit of a mess.  I get the impression he has little interest in that part of the world and it shows.

I think one could criticise the worldbuilding of any fantasy or Sci-Fi novel.

Dune is a great read, but the universe that Herbert created doesn't survive close scrutiny.  Like the Dothraki, the Fremen are far too violent a society to be capable of existing.

Implausible world-building doesn't mar my enjoyment, until the point - as per the Abomination - where it becomes utterly ridiculous, and armies teleport, soldiers survive on air, and Westeros is endlessly shrinking.