Is it fair to say, as a broad critique of ASOIAF, that Martin never seemed to fully think through the overall effects (on warfare, economy, culture, etc.) of the uneven seasons?

opinions-about-tiaras:

racefortheironthrone:

He’s better on some aspects more than others, but it’s a fair critique. 

It’s a consequence of the series being like 90% high-octane politics and culture that strives to be as accurate to real human interactions and cultural ones as possible, in order to draw is into the world and engage us with it, and only 10% giant flying magic murder dinosaurs and ice zombies. The 10% stuff sometimes doesn’t mesh well with the other stuff.

Like, we’ll accept the dragons violating all manner of natural laws, because magic. We’ll accept the wights and Melisandre and all that stuff.

What we have trouble with is “a ten-year-long-winter in a premodern society. Really. How does literally <em>everything</em> not just die.” We’re less prepared to accept “magic” for that. Magic how, precisely?

But if the series were more traditional fantasy, we wouldn’t care. Like, in Forgotten Realms people don’t consider “how the fuck do the Drow live permanently underground” a big thing to get bent out of shape over, because that setting is just pure bullshit from top to bottom, and that’s part of its charm. ASOIAF is not like that. It’s brutally real much of the time, so we have different standards.

I think it’s the familiarity issue – giant dragons are not something we’ve come across, so while we know about weight/lift ratios abstractly it isn’t that visceral for us. On the other hand, we know what winter does to plant life, so that’s a higher bar to clear.