i saw an article about house of the dragon earlier that described it as nihilistic and i think “nihilism” has become one of those words the fandom uses so much it’s basically turned into a bumper sticker.
something sad happens. nihilism.
a good person dies. nihilism.
characters make terrible decisions and then have to live with the consequences. somehow, also nihilism.
i’ve just never read grrm that way.
if asoiaf were actually nihilistic, there’d be no point in characters like ned, davos, brienne, sam, or dunk existing ( just to name a few) in the first place. they aren’t there to prove that goodness is pointless. they’re there to ask whether goodness is still worth choosing when it comes with a cost. and that people do!
that’s fundamentally a very different question!
ned dies because of the sort of man he is, but the books spend the next several thousand pages showing that his choices mattered. not because they saved him, but because they shaped the people he left behind.
the same goes for davos. for brienne. for dunk. none of them are rewarded in the way fantasy usually rewards its heroes or good guys. sometimes, actually, pretty much always, they’re punished for trying to do the right thing.
but grrm never implores us to think they were fools.
if anything, he infers and the opposite.
i’ve always thought the point of asoiaf is that goodness isn’t easy. it isn’t safe. it isn’t guaranteed to change the world. but it still matters.
i don’t think that’s nihilism.i think that’s hope and goodness refusing to take the easy route it often does in other fantasy stories.
it just underlines that the house of the dragon reporters and writers really don’t get it, at least that’s what i think.
