7 ms·

Martin's goal was clearly a sort of political realism (e.g. a lot of what's going on is heavily inspired by the War of the Roses, a real historical scenario), s

by kemayo 4y ago

Martin's goal was clearly a sort of political realism (e.g. a lot of what's going on is heavily inspired by the War of the Roses, a real historical scenario), so complaints about how something was politically unrealistic are probably most relevant. He's very concerned with "people really act this way" or "people really fight over things like this", and not as much with "people can really build a 700 foot tall wall with medieval technology". (That said, the specific article danso linked to is actually one where being nitpicky about logistics makes plenty of sense, because the show chose to make the entire episode about logistics. Once you make a topic the centerpiece of an episode, you'd better get it right. :D) It's also worth separating Martin's goals and the TV showrunners' goals. In some ways this is where a lot of the criticism of the last seasons of the TV show come from, as the showrunners had to break out on their own without Martin's plot to rely on. This changed the implicit priorities of the show, and the audience noticed and weren't thrilled. Perhaps best exemplified by the last part of the show where the surviving lords of Westeros elected Bran as king "because he had the best story". (Though there was also the way that armies started basically teleporting around, because although Martin didn't care that much about logistics, he still did care a bit.)

the_af 4y ago
Everyone is aware AGoT has a lot of inspiration on the Wars of the Roses. Its fantasy depiction of fantasy nobility and feuds is more "realistic" than, say, The Lord of the Rings (the work of "medieval fantasy" that looms large over all others), so I'd say it does a good job at it. It also has dragons and magic, so let's not take this inspiration too far, shall we? The author of the blog we are quoting understands this, fortunately. He's being nitpicky for fun's sake, as he readily admits in one of his initial articles about AGoT [1]: > "But first, I want to answer a question: Why am I bothering? Isn’t this all a bunch of useless nitpicking? Well, first – what did you expect from a blog named A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry? Useless nitpicking is our specialty." He then goes on to say: > "But – for once – I think this is useful nitpicking. For a great many people, Westeros will become the face of the European Middle Ages, further reinforcing distorting preconceptions about the period." It's true that fiction, especially in movies and TV shows, reinforces what people think they know about the past. See how many people (and games) repeat terrible tropes from the wildly inaccurate movie "Enemy at the Gates", and think the Soviets basically constantly mowed down their own troops at the first sign of wavering, or that at Stalingrad there were not enough bullets or weapons for every soldier. So I feel the author's pain. Then again, neither the AGoT novels nor TV show pretend to be about real medieval history, they just claim to be inspired by it. If the audience thinks this represents real history to any degree, maybe they should have paid more attention to all the dragons, magical weapons and undead zombies in the show? PS: the blog author's point about how medieval armies were raised, their numbers, and the involved logistics is fascinating and extremely interesting. It obviously doesn't work like this in AGoT or Lord of the Rings! --- [1] https://acoup.blog/2019/05/28/new-acquisitions-not-how-it-was-game-of-thrones-and-the-middle-ages-part-i/ https://acoup.blog/2019/05/28/new-acquisitions-not-how-it-wa...

by kemayo 4y ago

the_af 4y ago

Everyone is aware AGoT has a lot of inspiration on the Wars of the Roses. Its fantasy depiction of fantasy nobility and feuds is more "realistic" than, say, The Lord of the Rings (the work of "medieval fantasy" that looms large over all others), so I'd say it does a good job at it. It also has dragons and magic, so let's not take this inspiration too far, shall we? The author of the blog we are quoting understands this, fortunately. He's being nitpicky for fun's sake, as he readily admits in one of his initial articles about AGoT [1]: > "But first, I want to answer a question: Why am I bothering? Isn’t this all a bunch of useless nitpicking? Well, first – what did you expect from a blog named A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry? Useless nitpicking is our specialty." He then goes on to say: > "But – for once – I think this is useful nitpicking. For a great many people, Westeros will become the face of the European Middle Ages, further reinforcing distorting preconceptions about the period." It's true that fiction, especially in movies and TV shows, reinforces what people think they know about the past. See how many people (and games) repeat terrible tropes from the wildly inaccurate movie "Enemy at the Gates", and think the Soviets basically constantly mowed down their own troops at the first sign of wavering, or that at Stalingrad there were not enough bullets or weapons for every soldier. So I feel the author's pain. Then again, neither the AGoT novels nor TV show pretend to be about real medieval history, they just claim to be inspired by it. If the audience thinks this represents real history to any degree, maybe they should have paid more attention to all the dragons, magical weapons and undead zombies in the show? PS: the blog author's point about how medieval armies were raised, their numbers, and the involved logistics is fascinating and extremely interesting. It obviously doesn't work like this in AGoT or Lord of the Rings! --- [1] https://acoup.blog/2019/05/28/new-acquisitions-not-how-it-was-game-of-thrones-and-the-middle-ages-part-i/ https://acoup.blog/2019/05/28/new-acquisitions-not-how-it-wa...