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Comment by rocqua | Hacker News Reader

Part I of this series spends a few paragraphs on "Why is this criticism necessary". The general argument is:

1) Depictions in popular media, even if people know they are unrealistic, become anchors for how we imagine certain cultures. Knowing the depiction is unrealistic does not help against this.

2) a song of ice and fire / Game of Thrones are often praised for their realism. This makes the wholly unrealistic depictions here worse. Not only might this cause subconscious anchoring. It could also lead people to consciously conclude "this might be how it was". If not, this presumption of realism might lead to less critical reading.

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GoT isn't realistic in the way that the cultures of Westeros are "real" or "realistic". Many analogies and parallels to historical cultures are stereotypical at best.

But GoT is (more) realistic (than other TV shows) in it's depiction of:

a) Complex personal motives and agendas. No person is entirely good or entirely bad, and everyone is a hero in their own story. Most shows don't get it, GoT largely does.

b) Costumes and places. Those are not "realistic" in a historic sense, but they are very well-made and of higher visual quality compared to other shows. The rest just seems to recycle props from the last medieval flic it seems, GoT looks more refined. GoT has visual realism that is akin to a very well-made texture map in a completely fictional computer game.

c) Edit: I forgot one: GoT breaks with a few of the usual hollywood stroytelling tropes, making the story feel less formulaic and more realistic. E.g. gratuitous killing of main characters and sudden abandonment of whole long-prepared story-arcs because life happens (King Rob and the Red Wedding).

Yeah, I laughed out loud when characters in Netflix "Witcher" series travelled around with no things whatsoever. When Geralt needed to go to some place, he just hopped on a horse in a shirt, and just left.

In GoT they cared a great deal more about such stuff. Travelling characters looked like they actually travelled.

> Travelling characters looked like they actually travelled.

Not sure I agree with that. I don't recall Tyrion and Bronn being very well equipped for long travel when they first journey together.

Or Jamie and Bronn when they set out on their little quest.

And I didn't see much in the way of supplies when Jon Snow and company hunt for a walking corpse in a tundra far north of the Wall.

Like, dothraki carry literally nothing. And apparently, no one in Westeros invented hats yet.

That thesis necessitates a shallow reading of the material, imo.

ASoIAF isn't praised for its "realism" so much as the subversion of fantasy tropes that are a staple of grimdark fantasy. The "realism" is in the notion that knights aren't chivalrous and ladies have to fight for themselves, while the commoners suffer under their lords and medieval society is generally dysfunctional.

At the end of the day it's still fantasy with dragons and ice zombies pillaging fictional societies. There are absolutely allusions to real peoples, but something Martin does exceptionally well is the synthesis of his fictional cultures from various influences in real history to create things that are familiar enough while still being distinct.

From various influence? It appears that the Dothraki is based more on stereotype than any real historical influence.

Even if we judge the Dothraki by itself, they lacks verisimilitude. They are not believable as a society, fantasy or otherwise.

I always saw Daenerys Targaryen's plot to be a "cartoon", so to speak. Everything about her: from the dragons, to the royal bloodline, to the "slaves are bad Imma save everyone" plots was cartoonishly shallow. She's practically the "Dungeons and Dragons Murder Hobo Adventuring Party".

In effect, Daenerys was the "typical" fantasy plotline, happening elsewhere. Eventually, when Daenerys arrived on Westeros, where actual politics / actual history is going on (aka: more real), her fantasy methodologies just don't work out very well.

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But that's my reading (of the HBO series. I never actually read the books). I recognize that there are people out there who might think that the Dothraki were somehow realistic.

"I recognize that there are people out there who might think that the Dothraki were somehow realistic."

Those people apparently include George R.R. Martin himself.

The books are the same. Every time the focus switches to Daenerys the quality plummets.

If I were to re read them I’d be strongly tempted to skip all the non-Westeros chapters

> her fantasy methodologies just don't work out very well.

I don't think that happened in the show. Like, she did not even tried her previous methodologies. When she came to westeros, writers had no idea what to do and lost the plot.

> From various influence? It appears that the Dothraki is based more on stereotype than any real historical influence.

Dothraki are influenced by a number of different real, historical stereotypes of different steppe dwelling cultures known for their mounted-but-not-heavily-armored warriors.

> medieval society is generally dysfunctional

How can something that survived for 1000 years while constantly evolving and adapting to changing circumstances be disfunctional?

Dysfunctional for commoners.

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