[the_af]

> I think you are looking for another kind of realism than what the books have

Again, let me stress this is ACOUP's opinions, not mine. I do find them convincing, though.

> GoT have a world with magic and dragons, I think it would be completely unrealistic if that world ended up with a religious life exactly as ours in the Middle Ages.

George Martin himself waves away this explanation, that because "it has dragons" then it cannot be realistic, consistent (which mind you, GoT is NOT) or follow the conventions of medieval society. (I cannot find the exact quote, but I'm sure you can if you search the web).

It's not that GoT doesn't fashion a religious/family/feudal life exactly like in our real middle ages -- it's just that he consistently deviates from it so that the end result is less realistic than the romantic epic of Lord of the Rings, while also at the same time claiming his vision is more realistic! And he did claim this.

He claims to have based the Dothraki on the Huns, Mongols and other steppe people, yet they behave nothing at all like them.

He claims to have based the Faith of the Seven on the Catholic Church, yet nobles don't treat it like such and they even blow up the Sept with no serious repercussions.

Westerosi are skeptical of gods and the supernatural, when in the real Middle Ages most would believe in both. In fact, it's almost like Westerosi have a modern mindset, rather than a medieval one!

And so on and on.

[msh]

I think we are using different definitions of realistic. If you take the meaning that realistic is that the world should be as in our Middle Ages you are right, if you take realistic as showing how things would a more practical look at how the world of GoT would be I think the above does not really matter.

[the_af]

But the thing is, the world of GoT isn't a realistic depiction of how medieval society would mutate due to dragons and zombies; it has so many divergences that George Martin's claim to be depicting a more realistic medieval society than in other fantasy worlds just does not hold. Like ACOUP points out, Westerns looks more like the Renaissance or even Victorian England.

It's not just religion (which, by the way: why do the dragon-riding Targaryens also do NOT believe in zombies or gods?).

It's also the feudal system. It didn't work like in GoT, as Brett from ACOUP shows. Medieval tactics (without dragons, how much of the battles happen in the books and show) don't work like that either. The bannermen system cannot sustain such large armies. Kings didn't randomly mistreat their populations. Logistics don't work like in GoT -- and that's current real world logistics, not even medieval! Steppe people weren't like the Dothraki. And so on and on.

Martin's world is pretty cool (to me, anyway) but is in no way more "realistic" than the Disneyland worlds he complains against.

[aragilar]

That sounds like a no true scotsman argument to me. Given popular culture's tendency to already get things significantly wrong, claiming the mantle of "realistic" shouldn't have the level set at "eh, it kinda fine" (which is treating GoT very leniently).

[msh]

But how would you define realistic for a fantasy world?

You can't expect people to believe as they would in our world, given that their world is different. If invaders with dragons took over England in our Middle Ages and crushed the church, peoples religion would realistically also evolve very differently from what it actually did.

[the_af]

But the Targaryens behave as atheists. They don't act as if they believed the gods were judging them. Even without dragons, the subsequent kings don't act as if they were divinely ordained [1]

The vikings who massacred Christians had their own religion. What's the Targaryen's? What's the Lannisters'?

You simply cannot claim to be depicting a realistic medieval society (with magic), as Martin does, without this. And many other details he got wrong.

By Martin's own admission, dragons and magic are not an excuse for being inconsistent or "unrealistic". Vast armies cannot be raised and teleported to battlefields just because there are dragons. Dragons are no excuse for blowing up a major cathedral with no consequences.

----

[1] If you watch HBO's prequel, it's even worse: at a time when the Targaryens had plenty of dragons, there were warring factions within them, all vying for the throne, each claiming to have the "rightful" heir. But where's the legitimacy of each claim supposed to be derived from? Kings claim "rightful" inheritance through lineage, but somewhere up the line there must be a divine right to rule. So they may have disagreements about whether it's matrilineal or patrilineal (cue Henry V and the Hundred Years War), or whether someone was a bastard, but ultimately every feudal king though he had a god-given right to rule. Otherwise what would the different claimants be arguing about?