Back in 2014-15 I first read the A Song of Ice and Fire series, I liked it then, though I didn't completely comprehend everything that was going on due to my mastery of the English language was far, far worse (I'm Dutch, remember?), and I'd mostly only read children's or YA books in English at that point. After reading it the first time, however, I didn't really feel any need to revisit it. I didn't own the books, simply borrowed them from an acquaintance.
But last year I happened to have been given a free copy of A Game of Thrones by one of my housemates. So sure, why not revisit it after all those years? Now I can finally figure out if it still holds up or if my opinion has changed.
Please note that this review includes a brief mention of several dark topics, including rape, an adult-minor relationship and incest. Spoilers ahead.
A Game of Thrones deals with many characters and plotlines, all happening in the fictional kingdom of Westeros. The most important plotlines seem to center around the Stark family, which moves to the capital city of King's Landing after the patriarch of the family, Eddard Stark, is chosen as the king's right-hand man. From there on various things go wrong, all the while Eddard tries to uncover the truth behind the murder of the previous hand, Jon Arryn. Interpersonal conflict ensues.
I find it kind of difficult to review this book or to even give it a proper summary since it's not just one simple plotline and there are so many characters, most of which storylines all tie together in some way or form. However, I will say that I like the way it is executed.
While it's sometimes difficult to keep track of who is who (there are a lot of characters, including many who share a same first name and a lot that are just mentioned offhand), I found myself being able to keep up with the story much more than in 2014/15. I also really like (most of) the characters. Not all of them equally, but I got thoroughly invested in the plotlines of Sansa, Eddard, Arya, Bran and Dany. I didn't care that much for any of Catelyn's, Jon's or Tyrion's plotlines, but I didn't actively dislike them, either.
A criticism I do have is the battles. They are luckily few and far between, but I just did not find them engaging to read whatsoever. Martin excels at writing characters and their interactions, but so far the battles have not been his forte. I just found them boring to read and just wanted to get back to the interaction chapters while all this was happening.
As for the other point: the dark subject matter. Unlike some adult fantasy such as Tolkien, which is kept pretty clean, Martin's world is dark, and I mean dark. Subjects such as adult-minor relationships, rape, incest, etc. are quite commonplace and these characters also see it as that, just part of everyday life. If you know me, you know I'm usually not overly fond of depicting these things in fiction. I'm not saying they can never be touched on, but it requires a lot of care and dignity to handle it right. How does A Game of Thones handle it?
I'm honestly kind of mixed on it. It's handled with a bit of tact, but the way the characters go about these things is also kind of mixed. The incest is clearly shown as bad, which is good, but the relationship between Dany and Drogo isn't explicitly shown in a bad light despite Drogo being an adult and Dany being around fourteen years old. Also, yes, he gets her pregnant. She does clearly love him but that doesn't make this relationship okay in any way, so to see it be seen as kind of normal by the characters elicits a yikes response from me. I get it, it's the (fictional) medieval ages and stuff was normal back then, but it's also fictional, so Martin easily could've made it so it's not normalized in Westeros. So overall these topics thankfully used sparsely and handled with at least some degree of tact, but stuff like Dany's and Drogo's relationship leaves much to be desired.
So while I really enjoyed reading this book for the most part, I do have some points against it. So I'll be giving this one two different ratings, like I've done before with some books, a personal rating with how much I enjoyed it and a critical rating deducting points for the stuff I didn't like. These together make up the final rating.
Will I be checking out the other A Song of Ice and Fire books after this? I am honestly not sure. I don't have much memory of any of them even from my 2014/15 read. The enjoyment I got out of this book does make me want to look ahead, but I don't think I'll want to pay the full price for these books, either. Maybe I'll pick them up secondhand or as ebooks in the future.
Rating:
5/5 (personal score)
3/5 (critical score)
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