Editing A Song of Ice and Fire (section)

==The appeal of A Song of Ice And Fire==
Exactly what catches the eyes of [[Skub|a given fan/critic/lout who complains about how bad it is anytime the show is mentioned within earshot]] to ASOIAF and its TV adaptation varies from individual to individual. Still, there's a couple of major draws.

'''The Worldbuilding:''' The main reason why this series gets compared to [[The Lord of the Rings]], ASOIAF is literally ''drowning'' under the weight of its worldbuilding, being crammed as full of facts about fictitious regions, histories, cultures, dynasties and races as GRRM can fit it. A lot of effort is also expended on the little things, from food to architecture to the limits of scientific knowledge and technology. Your mileage will vary on how ''good'' that info is, but there's plenty of info in it. It is worth noting that much of the vagueness of various aspects of the world's lore comes down to the limited perspectives of each of the characters' point of view, so many places and events are often only known partially through superstition, rumors, and often second hand experiences passed down and muddled over time; all of which play quite heavily into the overall story structure of the series.

'''A vast colorful Cast:''' A lot of works of fantasy get by with a few archetypal characters (the Young Guy out to Prove themself, the Wise Wizard, the Dark Lord, the Mischievous One, the Grizzled Veteran, the Princess, the Dwarf, etc) and maybe a guy or two which rises above this. A Song of Ice and Fire has dozens of viewpoint characters and a hundreds of secondaries each with different situations, drives, motives and quirks that make them reasonably interesting. Even if you don't like one or some of them, there are plenty of others. When they die, it often hits home. Speaking of which...

'''Mainstream [[Dark Fantasy]]:''' Dark Fantasy is not exactly a mainstream niche. ASOIAF stands out by deliberately trying to market itself to the mainstream, despite embracing an abundance of dark fantasy tropes; gratuitous violence, sexuality and sexual violence, moral ambiguity, political intrigue, and a willingness to suddenly kill off any character, even the most likeable or heroic of them.

'''[[Low Fantasy]]:''' On the surface, ASOIAF is an old-school Low Fantasy setting, being a medieval-tech world with the story openly focused on the mundane lives of people struggling for political power and though supernatural elements do exist, they tend to be used sparingly.

'''[[High Fantasy]]:''' But if you scratch the surface, ASOIAF is also a High Fantasy setting, which is always the more marketable of the two, with the big backstory about how the world is facing impending doom from an army of wintery [[fey]] and their [[undead]] minions.  There are also non-evil higher powers working against them, but they get swept under the rug in the show.  Also, [[dragon]]s. As the more marketable genre, it's also inevitably the more skubby one, for whatever that's worth.

As a minor manifestation of both points, often you'll get two explanations for something in the books: a fantastic one involving curses, sorcery, ancient creatures from ages shrouded in myth, prophecy, etc and a mundane one involving slight-of-hand, embellished stories, economics, mechanical solutions, etc. In A Song of Ice and Fire, both are usually valid, so you are left guessing which is which (with "both" being a probable answer in some cases).

'''[[Magical Realm|Gratuitous Sexuality]]:''' More a thing for the TV show than the books; GRRM's scenes were [[Rape|raepy]] in the earlier volumes, and apparently our boy must have overheard the nickname "George Rape Rape Martin (I ''Like'' Rape)", because he dialed back the forced boning in #4-5. The frequent scenes of nudity and sex in the early seasons of the show were a ''big'' selling point for many people (the casting of people from the sex industry for some of these scenes also helped).

'''Not much in terms of generic fantasy tropes:''' Hate how almost every fantasy just has to have things popularized by Tolkien such as elves, dwarves, orcs and all that stuff?  You're in luck because ASOIAF doesn't have a "five races" system, their accompanying stereotypes or the plot hinging on a magic item.  On the other hand, it does have several generic fantasy tropes, such as [[dragon]]s, [[Medieval Stasis]], [[undead]] and at least two contenders for [[BBEG|Dark Lord]] status, so if you hate them too, well...

'''Lots of Houses and Sigils''': OK, so this is sort of a joke...except not completely. For those who are artistically minded and love coming up with their own OC groups and/or fleshing out minor characters, this setting really does invite it with the absolutely insane number of houses [[Space Marines|that each have their own distinct logo/color-scheme combo]].