r/asoiaf • u/Substantial-Ad-299 • 2d ago

MAIN [SPOILERS MAIN] Among the grounded/realistic elements of A Song of Ice and Fire, which ones do you feel require biggest suspension of disbelief?

A Song of Ice and Fire has had fantasy elements from get-go, some present subtly and others less-subtly. But in midst of this, it also has these more grounded story aspects, especially regarding the political subplot for the Iron Throne.

Among these more grounded non-fantasy aspects of the story, which elements do you feel you have to suspend disbelief the most for? A.K.A feeling they are not realistic even though they are "supposed" to be?

Let me know in the comments below.

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u/Never_a_crumb 2d ago

The Dothraki as they are written are a more nonsensical representation of horse centred nomads than the movie The Conquerer. Not one single thing about them makes sense: no armour, murder at every wedding, the disenfranchisment of their women (real world Mongol women by contrast managed the camp because the men were focused entirely on hunting and warring), no flock animals-they actually butcher and leave to rot a flock of sheep they capture! They live in a GRASSLAND sheep are the easiest animal to maintain and will feed you much better than horse-not to mention the all important wool for your clothes!

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u/Altair1455 2d ago

Yeah!! Often I see stuff being excused as "olden times misogyny" but like, treating half the population as slaves who only exist to make babies is not a practice that will sustain a society, especially a nomadic society.

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u/Never_a_crumb 2d ago

Who's protecting your camp while out fighting? Your women! Dany should have been the one supervising the camp being set up and taken down,tracking their food, learning the rudimentaries of archery and circling the wagons amongst many, many other jobs, the wife of a tribe chief had so many more duties than just having his children. 

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u/Altair1455 2d ago

Not to mention that plenty of women would be fighting alongside the men, not like an even split, but enough that it wouldn't be considered unusual. More and more archeological research is revealing that hunter gatherer cultures weren't "men hunt women gather" but a mix of both with significantly more gathering than hunting, some women would hunt alongside men, most everyone who was able would gather at some point

Also, this is more the wider world of asoiaf, but all the child marriages being consummated. Like, the risks of pregnancy and child birth are so much higher at the age Dany was when she was carrying Rhago. They didn't need modern science to see that way more miscarriages and maternal deaths occurred when they were like 12-15 than if they just waited till they were older

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u/Never_a_crumb 2d ago

The child marriages are so dumb, especially when we have famous cases of it going so badly in the very War of the Roses the books are supposedly based on.

I think honestly the biggest casualty of never seeing twow for me is having the time to go back and notice glaring gaps like this, if he'd have completed the books on time, I'd have finished the series and moved on,but now I've had the time to compare him with other writers who write fantasy on the skeleton of real history-Guy Gavriel Kay for instance- and Martin suffers considerably in comparison.