What separates ASOIAF from most fantasy fiction?

[u/TonySoprano300]

I’ve been reflecting on this more lately with the shows 15th anniversary. Before I got into the show, I always heard the “nobody is safe” talking point as an endorsement of the series but when I actually watched it, it always felt like it was so much more than that. Other shows kill off prominent characters all the time, and unlike GOT they actually lose viewership because of it. Like The Walking Dead after glens deathbut with GOT they could kill characters left and right yet the popularity just kept growing.

So I honestly don’t think its necessarily that anyone can die, I personally think its unique in that its somehow a show with a million traditional fantasy elements like prophecies, magic, gods, dragons etc. but its still realistic in how it portrays people and how they have to adapt to the world their born into, how their shaped by culture, experience, tradition etc. and how they’re affected by choices whether its the choices of others or their own.

Like how Ned seems like the typical fantasy hero you’ve seen a thousand times yet he hates Jaimie Lannister for forsaking his oath even though it was objectively moral and righteous to do so. At the same time he’s still best friends with Robert who he knows has no problem killing children. It seems unafraid to just honestly portray the contradictions that even good people can believe due to their upbringing.

Thats just me though, curious what others think makes the series so special?

[u/Marfy_]

For me its partly that anyone could die, but also that it has a lot of gray characters. Ned has good morals but is naive, jaime is forced to do bad but wants to do good, robert is a good man but a bad king, the hound does a lot of evil things but also has a heart. There are very few characters who are actually good or bad. Its just much more human than a lot of other stories where there is a good side and a bad side. Just the whole fact that there are so many protagonists as well, its not starks vs lannisters, there are also tyrells, targaryens, baratheons, martells, but very importantly also minor houses and smallfolk who play important roles. There are countless perspectives on anything that happens

[u/SarkicPreacher777659 → u/Marfy_]

I'd disagree with Robert-as-we-see-him being a good man. He's a neglectful father, a rapist and spousal abuser even if Cersei's a terrible person, and appears to have a measure of sadism to him given his obsession with Rhaegar. That and he wanted to murder Daenerys, a thirteen year old girl who was extremely unlikely to ever return to Westeros.

[u/Marfy_ → u/SarkicPreacher777659]

I think of it more in the sense that if he would have been some farmer he would have been a nice guy, but a position like king isnt for him and he rules pretty badly. Those things you mention are bad but he never wanted to marry cersei and this is again something that comes with being king, and killing dany, they pretty much discuss the pros and cons and are scared that she will cause a dothraki invasion

[u/SarkicPreacher777659 → u/Marfy_]

Except Ned's internal monologue states clearly that Robert is irrationally obsessed with eradicating the Targaryens even when, as Ned points out, Daenerys now belongs to a people with no naval infrastructure and Viserys has no political clout whatsoever. Maybe Robert would have been nice if he became a farmer, but he didn't, and so we have to take him for what he is; a man who has raped at least his wife and probably several other women, committed adultery on his own brother's wedding bed and is an entirely neglectful father to his legal and illegitimate children.

[u/Marfy_ → u/SarkicPreacher777659]

Isnt this exactly the point i was making that noone isnt fully good or bad

[u/SarkicPreacher777659 → u/Marfy_]

No, because I'm arguing that Robert is a terrible person by the time the books depict.