(apologies if you've discussed this before but) do you think that the lack of smallfolk povs in asoiaf works to its detriment as a work which condemns their suffering as a byproduct of political conflict? it's a perspective i've only encountered recently and i've been pondering it
that depends on what you think the books are doing and i would say asoiaf has never attempted to do a serious critique of monarchy as a mode of governance, it's mostly a work about intra-aristocratic conflict in a fantasy world. martin's commentary on power involves acknowledging that yes all power structures are kept in place through systemic violence but it might be possible to redeem that power, so to speak, by using it well. a really obvious way i find this to be true is that the ideal of kingship in asoiaf is somewhat in play with the divine right of kings.
gods may or may not exist within the world of ice and fire but magic/prophecy is real. “if the world of men is to survive, a targaryen must be seated upon the iron throne” and “there must always be a stark in winterfell” are suggesting the same thing, that both families are divinely appointed (prophesied, that is) to be protectors of the realm during the long night, something that's owed to the fact of their magical bloodlines. this is something the fandom elides because it's a regressive fantasy trope that has its roots in biological racism—blood as inherent destiny—it's true within the text though. i believe martin has attempted to complicate this by implying that the valyrians magically altered their dna to be able to bond with dragons and that the starks' ability to skinchange is owed to their history of conquest in the north. i remember there was this paragraph in twoiaf about them taking the daughters of the warg king (skinchanger) and the marsh king (greenseer) as hostages/brides and the implication very much was that this is how they introduced those traits into their line. but it strikes me as, you know, to be able to have your cake and eat it too.
so both families have historically come to power through brutal, magical subjugation of other people but the narrative never actually frames the dragons, the weirwoods, or wargs as corruptions of the natural order of the world, instead the present generation of the starks and the targaryens just have to reckon with that historical abuse of power, and they're only able to do this because of their access to the same magic, not by their rejection of it (substitute "magic" for "political power" here and the sentiment remains the same) dany has to end the imperial legacy of the valyrian freehold with her dragons, bran as the last greenseer has to help the children of the forest to do what i don't know, that'll be revealed in twow, but he has to help them after they were originally subjugated by his stark ancestors, jon as lord commander must put an end to centuries of violence against the free folk in the north, and arya's story is most likely leading up to a restoration of order in the riverlands after it was ravaged by her brother's armies. i think we can all agree that if this was a seriously leftist work of speculative fiction we would be getting the povs of these subjugated classes and their own attempts at resistance, instead of it all being told through the lens of these nobleborn characters who're simultaneously positioned by the narrative as their saviours to varying degrees. but martin's not interested in that, he is interested in telling a story about the fantasy of a good king who'll heal the land and its people. and that's fine. asoiaf has never pretended to be anything else.
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