Tolkien
A common theme in the fantasy genre is the battle between good and evil, although Martin deliberately defied the conventions and assumptions of neo-Tolkienian Fantasy. Whereas The Lord of The Rings has succeeded in externalizing villains through ugliness, dark clothing, Martin felt that Tolkien's oversimplified the struggle between good and evil into stereotypical clichés. William Faulkner's 1950 Nobel Prize speech rather serves as a paradigm for Martin's writing; Faulkner said that only the human heart in conflict with itself is worth writing about. Just like people's capacity for good and for evil in real life, Martin explores the questions of redemption and character development in the Song of Ice and Fire series. The New Yorker …show more content…
The Wall's Night's Watch, whom Martin describes as "criminal scum who are also heroes and they wear black", was a deliberate twist on fantasy stereotypes. Furthermore, the use of black as the identifying color for the essentially good Night's Watch and the use of white for the much corrupted Kingsguard is another example of Martin subverting traditional fantasy which tends to link light colors with good and darker ones with evil. As any universally adored or hated fictional characters are too one-dimensional to present real life, Martin writes his characters with well-mixed natures so that readers will invest in and identify with them. The actions and politics in the novels leave it to the reader to decide about who is good and evil. Characters are explored from many sides through the multiple viewpoint structure so that, unlike in a lot of other fantasy, the supposed villains can provide their viewpoint. It is oddly necessary since in the real world and throughout history, all human beings justify their actions as the “right thing” and the opponent's as villainous. It may not always be easy to determine who represents the good and evil side in real life, as some of the darkest villains in history had some good things about them; the greatest heroes had weaknesses and
A common theme in the fantasy genre is the battle between good and evil, although Martin deliberately defied the conventions and assumptions of neo-Tolkienian Fantasy. Whereas The Lord of The Rings has succeeded in externalizing villains through ugliness, dark clothing, Martin felt that Tolkien's oversimplified the struggle between good and evil into stereotypical clichés. William Faulkner's 1950 Nobel Prize speech rather serves as a paradigm for Martin's writing; Faulkner said that only the human heart in conflict with itself is worth writing about. Just like people's capacity for good and for evil in real life, Martin explores the questions of redemption and character development in the Song of Ice and Fire series. The New Yorker …show more content…
The Wall's Night's Watch, whom Martin describes as "criminal scum who are also heroes and they wear black", was a deliberate twist on fantasy stereotypes. Furthermore, the use of black as the identifying color for the essentially good Night's Watch and the use of white for the much corrupted Kingsguard is another example of Martin subverting traditional fantasy which tends to link light colors with good and darker ones with evil. As any universally adored or hated fictional characters are too one-dimensional to present real life, Martin writes his characters with well-mixed natures so that readers will invest in and identify with them. The actions and politics in the novels leave it to the reader to decide about who is good and evil. Characters are explored from many sides through the multiple viewpoint structure so that, unlike in a lot of other fantasy, the supposed villains can provide their viewpoint. It is oddly necessary since in the real world and throughout history, all human beings justify their actions as the “right thing” and the opponent's as villainous. It may not always be easy to determine who represents the good and evil side in real life, as some of the darkest villains in history had some good things about them; the greatest heroes had weaknesses and