A Game of Thrones

[John_of_Patmos]

Hi everyone, I’m 18. One of my friends is into AGOT (she’s Catholic), and I’d be curious to read the books (not the show, I’m not okay with the graphic whatnot in it). Do the books constitute sin? I know there’s some sex in them…

 

[pensmama87]

I’ve read the first four books in the series. There is a lot of explicit content in them (though less in the first). I don’t think it would necessarily be a sin to read them, unless you were reading them to get titillated. My personal experience has been that the sex scenes are poorly written so I more laugh at them than anything.

A lot of the characters do behave rather badly, and although there is religion in the books the overall tone of the book (at least to me) suggests that religion is stupid. In the fourth book there is some stuff that made me roll my eyes because it came across as specifically intended to insult Catholicism (in terms of religious hierarchy, moral views, and situations that are presumably supposed to parallel moments in Church history.)

I’ll probably read the fifth book at some point, and the rest if/when they are published, because I just want to know what happens, but my overall conclusion is that even if they’re not immoral, they’re certainly not as great as everyone seems to think they are. Even if the characters and plot lines are interesting (which they are, for the most part), the prose is really, really annoying to get through.

 

[tomarin]

I’ve read the first four books in the series. There is a lot of explicit content in them (though less in the first). I don’t think it would necessarily be a sin to read them, unless you were reading them to get titillated. My personal experience has been that the sex scenes are poorly written so I more laugh at them than anything.

A lot of the characters do behave rather badly, and although there is religion in the books the overall tone of the book (at least to me) suggests that religion is stupid. In the fourth book there is some stuff that made me roll my eyes because it came across as specifically intended to insult Catholicism (in terms of religious hierarchy, moral views, and situations that are presumably supposed to parallel moments in Church history.)

I’ll probably read the fifth book at some point, and the rest if/when they are published, because I just want to know what happens, but my overall conclusion is that even if they’re not immoral, they’re certainly not as great as everyone seems to think they are. Even if the characters and plot lines are interesting (which they are, for the most part), the prose is really, really annoying to get through.

What kind of religion do they have?

 

[pensmama87]

What kind of religion do they have?

A lot of different kinds. The one that is most prevalent on the main continent for the story has seven gods, and there are temples and priests/priestesses related to their worship. It has a hierarchical structure that somewhat resembles the Church. It’s a kind of “new” religion (brought by the people who conquered the continent). The family that is the focus for at least the first book follows the older religion that seems more animistic - they go to the forest to worship.

Most of the religions are polytheistic. There are two that I can recall that are monotheistic but don’t have much in common with Christianity besides that. There are some religions that focus heavily on magic and conjuring. Only a few people seem devout for any of these, and they’re usually evil/dangerous characters (or at least opposed to the viewpoint of the character telling that chapter.)

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

A lot of different kinds. The one that is most prevalent on the main continent for the story has seven gods, and there are temples and priests/priestesses related to their worship. It has a hierarchical structure that somewhat resembles the Church. It’s a kind of “new” religion (brought by the people who conquered the continent). The family that is the focus for at least the first book follows the older religion that seems more animistic - they go to the forest to worship.

Their formal names are the Faith of the Seven while the North worships the Old Gods. A slight correction though, the Faith of the Seven doesn’t technically worship individual gods but rather each ‘god’ is a facet of one deity. Think our Holy Trinity plus four. Here’s further explanation from the fanbase wiki:

The Faith worships the Seven, a single deity with seven aspects or faces, each representing a different virtue. Worshipers pray to specific aspects of the Seven for help and guidance depending on their need. This aspects are:

• Father, or the Father Above, representing judgment. He is depicted as a bearded man who carries scales, and is prayed to for justice.
• Mother, or the Mother Above, representing motherhood and nurturing. She is prayed to for fertility or compassion, and is depicted as smiling with love, embodying the concept of mercy.
• Warrior, representing strength in battle. He is prayed to for courage and victory. He carries a sword.
• Maiden, representing innocence and chastity. She is usually prayed to to protect a maiden’s virtue.
• Smith, representing crafts and labor. He is usually prayed to when work needs to be done, for strength. He carries a hammer.
• Crone, representing wisdom. She carries a lantern and is prayed to for guidance.
• Stranger. An exception to the other aspects, the Stranger represents death and the unknown. Worshipers rarely seek favor from the Stranger, but outcasts sometimes associate themselves with this god.

 

[Scottgun]

Read several of the books in my time before converting to Catholicism. I remember thinking even back then that they were depraved smut.

 

[pensmama87]

Their formal names are the Faith of the Seven while the North worships the Old Gods. A slight correction though, the Faith of the Seven doesn’t technically worship individual gods but rather each ‘god’ is a facet of one deity. Think our Holy Trinity plus four. Here’s further explanation from the fanbase wiki:

That’s true, although IIRC the “multi-faceted” aspect wasn’t specifically explained until later, and it still seems to differ from whatever was going on in that temple in Braavos in book four (don’t want to spoil it too much.)

I won’t go so far as to call them “depraved smut,” but yes, there is depravity and smut in them. I’m not opposed to depicting in some fashion the worst about human nature, if it’s not glorified. Since I don’t know how it ends, I’m not willing to say it’s being glorified - yet. But I have been mostly disappointed with each book after the first, which I think was the strongest. I really, really disliked #4, which is why I haven’t bothered to read #5 yet.

If a person chooses not to read them, I don’t think he’s missing anything except a few pop culture references. I care enough about a select few characters to see what happens to them, although I’m not holding out hope because I’ve pretty much concluded the author doesn’t really know what he’s doing. He can do some worldbuilding, sure, and he has interesting ideas and characters, but I think he’s just way in over his head. The fact that he’s now several books past where he thought he would be and the books are longer than he expects are evidence of that. I read the bookjackets that proclaim him better than Tolkien and I just shake my head. More characters + more complicated storylines + explicit violence and sex =/= better storytelling or understanding about the human condition.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

But I have been mostly disappointed with each book after the first, which I think was the strongest. I really, really disliked #4, which is why I haven’t bothered to read #5 yet.

For what it’s worth, I’m reading the books backwards (which doesn’t make sense unless you know I’ve already seen much of the basic plot from the TV show ). Dance with Dragons tends to have a more positive depiction of the Faith in my opinion. (Well, not so positive from Cersei’s perspective but that should give you an idea without me spoiling everything. )

He can do some worldbuilding, sure, and he has interesting ideas and characters, but I think he’s just way in over his head. The fact that he’s now several books past where he thought he would be and the books are longer than he expects are evidence of that. I read the bookjackets that proclaim him better than Tolkien and I just shake my head. More characters + more complicated storylines + explicit violence and sex =/= better storytelling or understanding about the human condition.

I kinda agree but as a writer myself, I really envy him. I can scarcely think myself as elaborate as I’d like to be. Politics? How I wish. Most twists I know are already well-known to the rest of the world (thank you TVTropes ).

I can’t see myself creating that many characters and yes, I have to wonder why I really need to. But as far as the complex storyline, it just overwhelms me to the point that I’m humbled.

Did I mention that his prose just sounds so perfect?

 

[DerekTM]

Both the show and the books are great. There are very few clear-cut good and bad guys. It’s not like the Lord of the Rings where you have a clear ‘good vs evil’ perspective. It doesn’t whitewash war or corruption. It presents war as it should be presented - bloody, horrific, disgusting, and not the least bit glorious.

It depicts the world as it is, not as it wishes it were or as it should be… with a fantasy element attached. The “sexposition” is a bit gratuitous but if you find that more morally questionable than torture, infanticide, political corruption, and war you need to check your priorities.

 

[Contarini]

I don’t think LOTR is as clear-cut as many people think, but it’s certainly more idealistic than GOT.

I prefer LOTR but I’m glad both works exist. I don’t think GOT is better than Tolkien as a whole, but it’s certainly much better than Tolkien at giving a detailed portrait of a believable imagined society. Tolkien just wasn’t interested in stuff like politics or economics.

A case could perhaps be made that GOT is more orthodox than Tolkien, at least if we define orthodoxy in terms of St. Augustine

That is to say, in Tolkien evil is seen more often than not as an external force. People can be tempted, but much of the time the temptation seems more like what we would imagine it to be for unfallen human beings. Aragorn could choose to be evil, but he doesn’t seem to have any very strong pull in that direction. Evil is presented as something we freely choose. I don’t think the books are necessarily Pelagian, and I love them dearly. I’m making a devil’s advocate case here, so bear me out!

In Martin’s world, on the other hand, everyone is more or less broken. Most people are mostly corrupt. There are good, noble characters, but even they make terrible mistakes and their good intentions often lead to disaster.

This makes for much less uplifting reading, but arguably it’s quite compatible with an orthodox Christian understanding of the human condition.

The “faith of the Seven” obviously has some analogies to medieval Catholicism, but its basic beliefs actually look more like a very institutionalized version of Wicca (including the maiden/mother/crone thing). Arguably Martin does have an anti-monotheist bias given his portrayal of the worshipers of the “Lord of Light.” But this would apply to Islam at least as much as to Christianity.

Martin is an atheist, and his portrayal of religion sometimes reflects this, but mostly in unintentional ways. He clearly wants to portray religion as a real, serious part of people’s lives, for good and evil. One very troubled character who first appears as a monstrous villain and then becomes somewhat more sympathetic appears to have become a monk, and this is portrayed positively.

The strength as well as weakness of the books is their focus on politics and on the ways human beings hurt and destroy each other. They are very, very dark. I don’t think they are “depraved smut,” but I would not recommend them without some caveats. I myself needed to take a long break from them.

Edwin

 

[Havard]

Both the show and the books are great. There are very few clear-cut good and bad guys. It’s not like the Lord of the Rings where you have a clear ‘good vs evil’ perspective. It doesn’t whitewash war or corruption. It presents war as it should be presented - bloody, horrific, disgusting, and not the least bit glorious.

It depicts the world as it is, not as it wishes it were or as it should be… with a fantasy element attached. The “sexposition” is a bit gratuitous but if you find that more morally questionable than torture, infanticide, political corruption, and war you need to check your priorities.

I disagree about LotR. Not so much with the fellowship, but take Boromir, Faramir, Theoden, Denethor, etc. as examples. There are plenty of moral complications and shades of corruption in the second and third books.

 

[DerekTM]

I disagree about LotR. Not so much with the fellowship, but take Boromir, Faramir, Theoden, Denethor, etc. as examples. There are plenty of moral complications and shades of corruption in the second and third books.

If I remember correctly, Boromir and Faramir were under the influence of the ring - a wholly evil entity. Theoden was being influenced by Saruman - a wholly evil character.

Those aren’t exactly morally complex scenarios.

It pretty much falls to - are you with or against Sauron any other moral issues raised are minor.

 

[Havard]

If I remember correctly, Boromir and Faramir were under the influence of the ring - a wholly evil entity. Theoden was being influenced by Saruman - a wholly evil character.

Those aren’t exactly morally complex scenarios.

It pretty much falls to - are you with or against Sauron any other moral issues raised are minor.

There was evil “magic” involved, but I never got the impression that free will was thwarted. That’s not how I interpreted those literary devices. In each instance, the corrupted was shown to have free will, but gave into temptations of pride, greed, despair, etc.

 

[pensmama87]

Both the show and the books are great. There are very few clear-cut good and bad guys. It’s not like the Lord of the Rings where you have a clear ‘good vs evil’ perspective. It doesn’t whitewash war or corruption. It presents war as it should be presented - bloody, horrific, disgusting, and not the least bit glorious.

It depicts the world as it is, not as it wishes it were or as it should be… with a fantasy element attached. The “sexposition” is a bit gratuitous but if you find that more morally questionable than torture, infanticide, political corruption, and war you need to check your priorities.

This is a criticism of Tolkien I’ve heard often, and I used to believe it myself, but honestly, I think it’s based on a very shallow reading of his work.

There is some really, really dark stuff in Lord of the Rings, and even more in his other works that aren’t so widely read. Are they dwelled upon endlessly? No. But you’ve got actually a lot of the same kinds of stuff that you see in GoT (I think the only exception would be that I don’t recall any kind of prostitution), but there aren’t paragraphs devoted to explaining exactly what character put what body part where. But perhaps that’s not enough for the contemporary reader who’s used to things being more explicit. Using euphemism or not dwelling on those occurrences is not whitewashing or ignoring the more base aspects of the human condition - it’s just how pretty much everyone wrote until recently.

(Part of that, I’m thinking, is based a lot of great works of literature being meant for performance - and how, exactly, are you going to depict that stuff for an audience that is probably mixed when you don’t have the special effects benefits of film? So you get veiled references to let the audience know what outside baggage a character is bringing in, and a few references or bawdy jokes about it, but you certainly never had it actually depicted in the work itself.)

I guess I don’t see the point of all that explicitness, either. I used to find that titillating, sure, but now it’s just depressing. I don’t need to know about other character’s bodily functions in detail. I don’t need to know what blood and gore looks like in detail. I don’t need to know about how a prostitute’s venereal disease affects what she looks like. Contarini brings up a good point about the political intrigue and yes, that aspect is something Tolkien wasn’t really concerned about. That is something I enjoy about Martin’s books. But there’s a point at which so much mundane stuff is included to make it “realistic” that the books themselves become mundane. That’s what I find tiresome about them. Even the political intrigue is too much. Yes, in politics there’s always lots of fingers in lots of pies with lots of agendas. But you can’t try and mimic real life completely in something like that because there’s no way to create a coherent narrative out of that. My husband works in politics, in a very, very local way, and you could write a Martin-length book just based on that. At some point you need to decide what’s the most important and go with that, and ignore some of the side stuff or put it together.

 

[pensmama87]

If I remember correctly, Boromir and Faramir were under the influence of the ring - a wholly evil entity. Theoden was being influenced by Saruman - a wholly evil character.

Those aren’t exactly morally complex scenarios.

It pretty much falls to - are you with or against Sauron any other moral issues raised are minor.

There’s a LOT more going on than that.

You have issues with family relationships (Boromir and Faramir with their father to name just one). Saruman saw himself as a rival to Sauron (he was not allied - that’s a movie-ism [that failed IMO].) He used to be good but was corrupted by the lure of power (that’s what the Ring represents - well, one of the things - pure, absolute power to do as one wishes.) You have the political ambitions of small-town thugs like Lotho Pimple and Bill Ferny. One of the creepiest things was the use of sex slavery to breed Saruman’s army.

Yes, some characters were better able to resist the lure of the Ring than others. But one thing that I think a lot of people miss is that Frodo failed in his quest. The protagonist! He didn’t do the heroic thing. Even those of us with the best intentions can get worn down, even (especially?) if we’re knowledgeable. But earlier mercy he and Sam (and Bilbo, sixty years before) had showed to Gollum meant the quest was fulfilled. (now there’s an interesting complex character.)

Yeah, the story would be pretty boring if it was just, “We are just good guys walking to Mordor to destroy evil. Look at these bad people and horrid geography that gets in our way.” But that’s not the story.

 

[Indigo_Cardinal]

One of the things that really interests me about GoT is that it wasn’t just one thing that started the war, it was several things that had been lying in wait all those years that came to a head, and that there’s some issues still waiting to rear their ugly heads.

I think it’s also interesting that the majority of the characters are ‘shades of gray’, but even the best of them can do the absolutely wrong thing for the most well-meaning of reasons (prime example: Ned Stark and his conversation with Cersei in the garden. You understand why he chose the noble path and tried to do the right and honorable thing…but the results were an absolute disaster and pretty much set the flame to the tinder.)

I also like the different POVs, because Martin handled it in a way that strikes me as being very real-life. All too often, what I’ve seen in book series is that how one character sees something is exactly how all of his ‘allies’ will see it. GoT shows people experiencing the same event and walking away with many different viewpoints of what happened, and other characters hearing of it and as a result of having heard it second or third or even fourth hand, come up with an even different (and sometimes really skewed) idea of what happened, and act according to what they think they know. It’s honesty a pretty good view of human nature, as opposed to a lot of other books.

And as much as I like getting answers to questions…I’m oddly pleased that Martin seems unwilling to answer a lot of questions (the infamous “Does R+L=J?” one, for example–only two people seemed to even have a clue on that, and one’s dead.) Or the aforementioned monk on the island.

 

[Kurisu35712]

I’ve read all of them so far and I’m pretty sure I haven’t become a heathen yet.

In all seriousness though, I like them quite a bit. They are obviously for a more mature audience, but Martin does a very good job of depicting the moral shortcomings of even the “heroes” in the books. Most characters have a decent mixture of good and bad, some more bad than others. Some are very very very bad. The characters are all very realistic, as are the consequences of their actions. Good doesn’t always lead to a win, bad doesn’t always lose. It’s a level of realism this kind of fiction isn’t really used to.

The fiction itself draws from a lot of historical reference and background. The War of the Roses for one. One of the more prominent religions in the novels are based on Zoroastrianism, which is a pretty interesting dynamic compared to the more strict “Christian”-like Church of the Seven. There are more, and for the sake of spoilers I won’t mention them. Contarini gave a really good description of it overall. Martin does a really good job of critiquing the negative things that can result from religion (particularly conflicts between them), without making it seem as though the religions themselves are to blame. It’s the people, and their own motivations for power and potential to abuse their religious institutions to gain it that he focuses on. Honestly the entire thing is pretty much about people abusing their power to gain more power. The few morally good characters have their flaws, as all well-written characters do. And the bad ones have redeeming moments and characteristics that make them feel human, instead of just pure evil.

 

[Midwest88]

If I were you I’d rather read the books and not watch the series. The series has basically turned into “artistic”-porn-but-not-actual-porn.

Cause ya know, when people have sex they’re nude and sweaty. Showing them clothed would be an offense. /sarc

For example, on a flight, my brother was watching an episode on his laptop and, with such good timing, I looked exactly when one of the characters was “getting it” from behind. It turns out the character is a favorite for these explicit scenes, and the actress who played it actually threatened to do no more nude scenes for the show because the amount she was doing became a burden.