SoliFortissimi
Well-known member
No? Their families get betrayed and slaughtered.
Bad Worldbuilding of Westeros
- Thread starter Aldarion
- Start date
Which ones in particular?
evilchumlee
Well-known member
I want to address this one point before I bow out... I know when i've overstayed my welcome.
You did explain that, and you're right.
My counter argument is that while religious organizations are concerned with education and record keeping, that does not make secular education and record keeping mutually exclusive or otherwise impossible. We just don't have enough historical record for Westeros to know the exact reasons why the Faith didn't become the primary organization for education and record keeping. We can speculate, but that has been frowned upon here so I won't.
Without being able to go into speculative reasons as to why it happened, I simply have to leave it at the fact that it's not impossible. Religious organizations are not the only way to have education and record keeping, and sure that's how it tended to happen in our history. But it's not "bad worldbuilding" for something entirely possible to happen that didn't happen in our history, nor is it bad worldbuilding to not give a detailed description of the thousands of years of history that would have led to an otherwise incredibly minor detail.
I always saw books as encouraging one to use your imagination. They aren't going to give you every last detail. That's a good thing. That's what makes them fun. I don't WANT every single detail of everything spelled out. I want to fill in the gaps. It's a feature, not a bug.
Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
You are correct that secular education and record keeping is not mutually exclusive with religious one or otherwise impossible. And that is not the problem I have with it. After all, the University of Bologna was founded in 1088 by a group of students. University of Salamanca was founded in 1218 by King Alfonso IX, though it was founded around the previous cathedral school that had existed there. In general, there were universities that were founded by secular authorities, by students themselves, and by Church, and these coexisted and operated side by side.
My beef with Martin in that regard is that he has intentionally and completely excluded the Faith from education and science, when in a realistic premodern society religious organizations were significant sponsors and participants of both. At the same time, he has also completely excluded independent cities and even feudal lords from these, and instead introduced what is essentially a monastic secular order of learners. But if he was going to do that, why not make them connected to the Faith? Why did he actively avoid having the Faith do anything that is not talking about God, religion and morals, when we see from history that religions and religious orders were nearly always involved in secular matters? As a matter of fact, Catholic Church was the most significant sponsor of science and research throughout the Middle Ages and even beyond.
As I said: George Martin has not actually built a medieval world, he has simply thrown a bunch of postmodern conceptions together and built a medieval facade in front of them.
evilchumlee
Well-known member
The answer is... because it's a different world that didn't follow our history. Why not make them connected to the Faith? Because the Faith just isn't all that important. In this world, the church just didn't have the same kind of power it did in medieval Europe. We know bits and pieces of why... which seems to stem largely from Targaryen's personally not caring about the Faith and not wanting it to have influence over secular matters.
It didn't really happen in our history, but it's certainly not an impossibility... it seems like a valid alt-history for a dynasty of Kings to decide they don't want want the church meddling in their affairs and actively suppress them over a few generations. It makes even more sense then, if we assume that the crown has a position of generally being against the church that they would then ALSO make efforts to sponsor secular education... it would be a fairly idiotic idea for the crown to try to push the church's influence out as much as possible but then have to crawl to them when they needed sciencey shit done...
This is the base of my entire stance on this. We don't the exact reasons why. But there certainly ARE ways it could have happened. There's nothing objectively impossible about this happening in such a society. In Westeros, there was an an idea of separation of church and state "earlier" than our world did ("earlier" in quotes because they've been in a medieval state for what, a millennia or so?) The Faith got relegated to... matters of faith. They may ALSO do education and record keeping for their own purposes.
Sure, Martin did throw a few more modern concepts in there. Acknowledged. But I really don't think most of them are outlandish and the ones that ARE... are usually incredibly minor details that the vast majority of readers will never even realize are outlandish, like the plate armor situation or the agricultural logistics. You guys are all absolutely correct there. Completely unrealistic. And also... generally irrelevant.
EDIT -
I think the whole Faith/Maesters thing is the wrong thing to focus on for bad world building. It's just not.
If you want talk about the feudal structure/throne situation, or some of the more unbelievable states/houses... I think there's a much more compelling argument there.
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
When it comes to science never let it be forgotten that one of the founding fathers of the scientific method was Roger Bacon: A Franciscan Friar from the 13th century and as God fearing a man as could be.
The Church ushered in tremendous technological advancements and we can thank it for documenting and chronicling much of our resources on the ancient world. There is a reason Medieval Europe is, contrary to popular belief, comically more advanced than the Ancient World: the Egyptians could not have built cathedrals and stained glass windows.
Which I think hits on the crux of the issue with the worldbuilding in that Martin is operating off the modern, Renaissance propaganda informed view of the Middle Ages; a time of religious dogma and ignorance, arrogant lords and stinking peasants. When in actuality it was a thriving, colourful, and sophisticated epoch, the first great flowering of Post Roman Europe no less.
The Church ushered in tremendous technological advancements and we can thank it for documenting and chronicling much of our resources on the ancient world. There is a reason Medieval Europe is, contrary to popular belief, comically more advanced than the Ancient World: the Egyptians could not have built cathedrals and stained glass windows.
Which I think hits on the crux of the issue with the worldbuilding in that Martin is operating off the modern, Renaissance propaganda informed view of the Middle Ages; a time of religious dogma and ignorance, arrogant lords and stinking peasants. When in actuality it was a thriving, colourful, and sophisticated epoch, the first great flowering of Post Roman Europe no less.
To be honest, the sort of lavishly detailed worlbuilding that Tolkien did is more consistent with a hobby passion project than a writing project; Tolkien simply managed to get his passion project *published*. It would be highly unrealistic to expect a professional writer to devote *that much* time and energy into backstory that doesn't translate to actually making a living.
StormEagle
Well-known member
And most people don’t expect that level of detailed world building from fantasy or sci-if authors. There’s generally an implicit understanding that most books are a commercial endeavor, and expecting Tolkien level work from people that are writing to afford rent is unreasonable.
Where Martin gets into trouble, is that he has actually claimed to have built a more realistic world than Tolkien, and is praised by the media for supposedly doing so.
Claiming to be better than Tolkien in any way, shape, or form puts you in the unenviable position of having to prove that boast.
A boast which, in my opinion, Martin very much does not live up to.
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
And it isn’t like other authors don’t have half decent, consistent, worldbuilding. Sure its bare bones but it’s solid, coherent, and doesn’t think itself so superior.
As for the Tolkien style, it isn’t like Robert Jordan (God rest) and Brandon Sanderson didn’t/don’t give it some welly.
As for the Tolkien style, it isn’t like Robert Jordan (God rest) and Brandon Sanderson didn’t/don’t give it some welly.
evilchumlee
Well-known member
I don't think Martin ever suggested he was better than Tolkien. He suggested his works were more realistic.
The kicker is that people who really get into analyzing these things and are well versed in the history and such can see that no, it's in no way more realistic than Tolkien.
The vast majority of media consumers? ASOIAF does feel more realistic. Especially when we move to visual media, if you show most people the Lord of the Rings movies or Game of Thrones... I can guaran-damn-tee you only a statistically irrelevant percent of people will say Lord of the Rings is more realistic.
It may not actually be true, but perception is a powerful thing.
Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
While this is completely true, it is also true that there should be some standards. Especially for an author that claims to want to write "realistic" fantasy, and doubly so when said author takes a beef with Tolkien.
With Rowling, for example, I wouldn't really care how shallow her worldbuilding is (except for funsies) if it weren't for some massive plot contradictions it creates. For example, if Marauder's Map truly can see true identity of a person even when said person is in animagus form or disguised with potion, how come twins didn't notice Peter Pettigrew was hanging out with Ron for years? If a person can truly be a secret-keeper of a place that they live in - which is clearly possible, because Bill Weasley and Arthur Weasley became their own secret-keepers - how come Potters had to choose somebody else? Why couldn't James Potter be their own secret-keeper? Why isn't Veritaserum used in the wizarding trials? Why didn't Trace detect when Voldemort murdered his Muggle father and relatives? And apparently food cannot be summoned - but why is that a problem when you can transfigure any big old rock into a pig or a roast pig even? Why didn't Voldemort use an Ubreakable Vow to make all his Death Eaters swear an absolute loyalty to him?
Beyond that? I don't care how many wizarding schools there are - except, again, if I decide to take apart her worldbuilding for fun. But it certainly won't impact my enjoyment of the series.
Martin, however, has claimed to be trying to write a realistic fiction. So he doesn't get a pass.
And again - why wouldn't Faith have such influence in a pseudo-medieval world? If he is going to change a major thing like that, there should be a reason.
No, it really is not. Historically, dynasties have fallen because they failed to respect the gods.
And issue I have is precisely that the Crown didn't sponsor the secular education. Citadel, again, is created solely as a means of removing any credit that Catholic Church historically had for providing education and science - but even the Citadel was not created by the Iron Throne, it was created long before the Targaryen conquest, and has nothing to do with the Iron Throne. And the worst part is that we have no mention of any kind of non-Crown, non-Church universities, which historically did exist.
George Martin removed education and science from the Church, and then also removed everything that could have replaced Church's role in that, and then proceeded to create what is essentially secular, atheistic Church whose sole purpose is providing education and making sure people don't learn wrong things. And then he proceeded to make said secular, atheistic Church completely separate from the Iron Throne - that is, one of powers that arguably had both interest and means to create such an institution.
Do you see now what my problem is here?
If Citadel had been established by Targaryens explicitly to provide alternative to religious education and science, I wouldn't have had an issue.
If cities had their own universities established to perform research and provide education (e.g. King's Landing University, Oldtown University, etc.), I wouldn't have an issue.
As it is, however, it is just bad worldbuilding.
And when we are at that: where are independent cities? Why are all cities and towns property of lords? Why do we have no independent royal cities? It is almost as if everybody in the setting has dragons!
evilchumlee
Well-known member
It's not a "change"... it just never happened in that world. It's different than what happened in our history.
But another answer is that an explanation is absolutely not necessary, nor even feasible. We don't need every single detail of every single that has ever happened in the world. The Faith not having the same level of influence as the Catholic Church in our world has precisely zero bearing or relevance to the plot at all. Even if Martin was inclined to go into why, he is pretty much setting out to write a textbook of a few thousand of years of history.
Here's what I got from the ASOIAF wiki
There's so little information that it's impossible to answer the question without speculation. It looks to me that some ancient Kings created it to foster education from pretty much any angle, secular and religious. At this point, it may well have existed right alongside a stronger church doing a similar thing. Then the Targaryens come, they don't really care that much about the Faith but seem to dig this Citadel thing...
I really don't see why this so hard to understand.
I think both of these are stronger arguments.
Agreed. I would point out that many (although not all) of those contradictors can easily be resolved by added details (many of which have become widespread fanon), but that doesn't change the fact that JKR didn't see and address them in her actual writing.
(Except for the food thing -- Gamp's law is that nutritious food can't be conjured from thin air, but *can* be summoned or increased.)
Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
Except, if he is going for "realism", explanation absolutely is necessary. And he HAS claimed that he wanted realism, so he doesn't get a pass there.
Catholic Church is hardly the only religious organization that has had massive influence on society and politics. Religion matters in a premodern society, yet Martin has written a postmodern secular world.
It is not hard to understand, it is just that it simply doesn't work as described.
If Citadel is not a religious institution but a secular one, why is it the only of its kind? There should have been other universities beside it. Look at this map:
THAT is what we should be looking at if Martin really wanted to portray developed secular science and education. Instead, we have the Citadel... and nothing else.
Hell, even if it were an institution of the Faith, it should have had outposts elsewhere, not just individual Maesters hanging around with lords.
evilchumlee
Well-known member
That's a fair criticism.