Editing A Song of Ice and Fire (section)

==On The "Grimdarkness" of the Setting==

{{Topquote|No matter how much I make up, there's stuff in history that's just as bad, or worse.|George himself when discussing how Grimdark the series is}}

One important note: While the setting is usually held to be "Grimdark", it is also very true to Real Life in its nastiness, with real consequences for assholes.  Book one is almost exactly the beginning of the War of the Roses, except with England enlarged to a continent's size and the seasons stretched out to let the travel times work. (...And then the dragons wake up, the ice elves and their undead armies return and magic makes a comeback. It's not a perfect analogy. All that stuff is closed in their own sub plots and they don't involve the main continent in the book, that is left to "common" war and plotting.)

For an example of Grimdark, but with consequences: The King can order the execution of the head of the leading noble family of the North, for essentially no reason, but now he doesn't have hostages to exchange when their relatives and/or armies come after him seeking revenge. (And all this is modeled on various occasions where more or less '''exactly''' this kind of thing happened in real life medieval Europe.)

In other words: Truly heinous shit goes on, and there's nothing ''stopping'' that kind of shit... but there are ''consequences'' to that kind of shit that act as an effective counterbalance against being seen to do that kind of shit to the smarter nobles in the kingdom. And, because anyone can die, the shittiest characters are no more guaranteed survival than the nicest. 

Also worth mentioning that there's reason to think that, despite the quote that began this page, the series may not actually end on [[The End Times|100% downer note]], as Martin has said he hopes his series will end in a way akin to the Scouring of the Shire from Lord of the Rings, which, despite the name, is more of a bittersweet ending. So who knows (though this also presumes the author will actually get around to finishing the series at all).

In sum, whether the setting fully qualifies for "Grimdark" is a matter for debate. Probably the best way of looking at is that it is Grimdark, but in a nuanced way and with a point.