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A listserv I’m on mentioned that a member had published a review of Game of Thrones in a major market, so I wandered over to look. Here’s the link: http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=1543&fulltext=1&media=#article-text-cutpoint
I was impressed with the review on several counts, but the one I want to bring up here is the way other reviewers, critics, and readers talk about characterization, especially in the area of morality/ethics and spirituality. This isn’t about GRRM’s books, per se, but about a way of looking at all books, and considering how a writer’s view of reality affects how that writer constructs characters. Right now–in the review cited and in other writing about Game of Thrones–Martin epitomizes one particular view of reality, history, and human nature. Tolkein is often cited as his opposite. Thus it’s important to use language appropriate to those fundamental views–which Teitelbaum does in her review, and many others do not.
I’m going a bit further: she deals with the books, as a reviewer should, but I’m dealing with the field of “book discussion” in general. Complex characterization–including moral complexity–is usually considered a desirable component of serious fiction and has been throughout literary history in the West (I’m not competent to speak of other branches of the tree of literature, though the folktales I’ve read suggest appreciation of complex characterization worldwide in more sophisticated readerships.) Characters faced with difficult choices–characters whose choices arose from internal conflicts as well as external challenges, from Aristotle’s “fatal flaw” to subtler multiple ones–characters who had to cope with the results of their choices (good and bad)–were praised for that complexity.
But over the past century, increasingly, moral ambiguity become conflated with moral complexity…as if a character’s feeling of ambiguity in some situations–being uncertain what was the right choice, or feeling tempted to a wrong one–made the character morally ambiguous. From there, “morally ambiguous” expanded to mean that readers could not discern whether the character was “good” or “bad” or whether the character had any conception of right and wrong…and from there, fairly predictably, the morally ambiguous character became the one who ignored any such considerations and simply acted on personal preference. Characters who would once have been recognized as evil were retitled morally ambiguous and granted the description of moral complexity as well.
Writers whose characters had a clear understanding of right and wrong within the fictional culture (the character’s culture) were criticized for writing characters without moral complexity–simplistic, idealistic, romantic being some of the common terms applied. Hence the shallow criticism of Tolkein that his characters were simply good or simply bad, without the desired complexity. (How any thinking adult reading Tolkein with attention could miss the moral complexity baffles me, but then I’m easily baffled.)
We all act, in part, from beliefs about the nature of the moral universe–beliefs, because there isn’t enough data for us to use logic every time we come to a choice. Either we think there’s a general good and bad, right and wrong…or we think there isn’t. In both camps there are disagreements on detail–serious ones–but the chasm between the two is larger than the internal fissures.
Moral complexity requires a general good and bad–an ordered moral universe. For there to be conflicts of values, the essence of moral complexity, there must be values held firmly enough to spark off one another. Character motivations will then include internal conflicts arising from the recognition that choices are made in that framework–but are not simple, because values do conflict. Which good is the greater good? Which bad is worse in this situation, right now?
Moral ambiguity requires that there be no general good and bad–a chaotic, or amoral, universe–a universe in which the concepts of good and evil are absent, immaterial, and have no effect on characters’ motivation. Characters can still be complex, but they cannot be complex in the moral dimension. They have preferences, desires, fears, which motivate actions, but they do not relate these to any moral order. Moral order, if any, is supplied by the reader (and some readers, happy in an amoral view of things, have none to supply.)
Thus moral complexity and moral ambiguity are not the same, and do not exist in the same fictional moral universes…except where a writer introduces characters who themselves believe these two different viewpoints. What happens then is interesting…because writers reveal themselves in their writing. When those two views appear in the same story, the writer will inevitably (in all my years of reading experience) reveal what the writer’s own foundation belief is, and most of the wrinkles of the subsidiary choices as well.
One of the scariest things about writing is that the better you get at writing fiction, the more you’re revealing yourself…the less you can hide. The novice storyteller’s self is hidden in layers of “influence”–what shows is what he or she read most–but later on, that fabled “voice” comes through and there you are, revealed, warts and pimples and flab and all. It’s not that all your characters are “you”, or that you did everything your characters did or approved of it. It’s that foundational beliefs that you may not even mention–probably don’t mention–bleed through. They are what I call the “deep logic” of your stories. Two writers may write a similar story–may write a hero and an anti-hero–but under that will be their deep beliefs about what “hero” and “anti-hero” mean, and the discerning reader will know that one of them thinks good & evil, right & wrong, just & unjust are real concepts, an important component of human thought and action, and the other thinks those are just romantic twaddle and what matters is strength, will, desire, etc.
So I toss out these ideas: moral complexity is not moral ambiguity, and moral ambiguity is not moral complexity. Labeling moral ambiguity “realistic” and moral complexity “idealistic” or “romantic” is…in a world in which fervent believers in one or another branch of morality kill or die (or both) to spread it…an exercise in denial. I wish reviewers, critics, and those who comment on books had the background to recognize and distinguish between them.
And now, back to the current chapter in which someone who “needed killing” had an unusual but fitting end. Last night’s session went long into the wee hours of the morning, so my day has been off-kilter from that as well as daylight savings time. Working on the chapter today…well. I write better before 1 am than after, but “what happened” still feels right.
Comment by Sully — April 1, 2013 @ 6:27 pm
I suppose there isn’t any way you’ll reveal who it is that needed killing?
Comment by Sully — April 1, 2013 @ 6:32 pm
err, any way you would reveal.
Comment by Catmadknitter — April 1, 2013 @ 6:54 pm
I really wish I had the brain to spare for this discussion. Any chance of reposting this in 2.5 weeks when my Praxis testis over? 😉
Comment by GinnyW — April 1, 2013 @ 6:57 pm
Thanks for the interesting review. Thanks even more for distinction between moral complexity and moral ambiguity. Although I think that part of what that reviewer discusses as “moral” whether complex or ambiguous has to do with a purpose or an end to history.
Perhaps it is my Easter frame of mind,but I think perhaps it is useful to distinguish between “moral” in the sense of having standards of behavior and “ethical” in the sense of having a configuration of values. Values include piety, which reflects allegiances to various unseen powers, and can be opposed to self-centeredness. It can also be opposed to other forms of piety.
I haven’t thought this through enough. Perhaps someone else has a helpful comment?
Comment by Daniel Glover — April 1, 2013 @ 7:39 pm
(playing off GinnyW)
And any “ethos” will be influenced by the metaphysical presuppositions as to the fundamental assumptions about the universe. But I’m two and a half decades removed from my formal study of that dynamic to give more or less well known “names” and examples of this dynamic without some background reading.
Comment by Confutus — April 1, 2013 @ 10:35 pm
I did read the first few volumes of the “Song of Fire and Ice”, but I found its moral ambiguity so repellent that I resolved not to have anything more to do with it. I don’t need anything in my life that evokes Hamlet’s famous despairing commentary.
There are many imitators of Tolkein in fantasy, but few peers in his handling of deeper moral issues.
Comment by elizabeth — April 1, 2013 @ 11:40 pm
Confutus: I haven’t read the books; I read part of a GRRM years ago and found it not to my taste. When I first read Tolkein, I was in college (and ran into someone whose parents had bought the books when they first came out in England–she had grown up with Tolkein being read to her.) I wasn’t mature enough to get a lot of the depth at that time, although the books sucked me in and didn’t let me go. But it grew on me, as I read more, not just in fantasy but in many fields–and as I had more experience of life and people. Reading Tolkein’s essays and short works, in the context of his WWI service, was an eye-opener.
Daniel: Precisely. It is those initial assumptions about the nature of the universe that bleed up through the layers of cultural, social, political thought to emerge as ethics and morality. Once when I was young and particularly arrogant, I tried to work out a taxonomy for classifying them, and their connections.
Ginny W: Although I think Teitelbaum could have separated her points on history and those on morality & values a little more distinctly (but maybe not in the allowed length) I was glad to see her bring in Huizinga (read him in college, in medieval history classes) as a counter to the idea of medieval history prevalent now. And you’re quite right that the distinction between ethics and morality ought to be maintained–the conflation there is common in discussion of literature, and I chose to use the term you see most often.
Catmadknitter: As slow and disorganized as my posting schedule has become, this may still be quite close to the top of the list when your test is over. Good luck on it.
Sully: Drop a great big fat spoiler for Book V on you before you’ve even read Book IV??? Do you want me lynched by the whole community? It’s someone you haven’t met yet. That’s all I can say. If you’re alert, you’ll pick up a clue from LIMITS. And you’ll still not have met the person.
Comment by Confutus — April 2, 2013 @ 12:48 am
Ouch. I meant Macbeth’s commentary (Act 5, scene 5) Not to my taste is an understatment. As far as how the deeper logic of an author’s foundational beliefs comes through whether they know or intend it or not, one of Orson Scott Card’s characters muses:
“This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question.”
Comment by Rune Ulset Furberg — April 2, 2013 @ 2:09 am
Interesting discussion, though being of somewhat of a simpler nature myself, I have nothing to add.
By the way, you make the classical error done by many English-speakers across the word and spell “Tolkien” wrong.
Comment by Sharidann — April 2, 2013 @ 3:09 am
Interesting review.
I have read ASOIAF, all five books, and found them an interesting read. I am still not sure whether I like the books or not tho.
Why ? Well, quite frankly, because, when I read a novel, I like it when the good guys win. 🙂
What irks me to no end – is that the noble behaviour of the Starks actually kills them and that apparently, only ruthlessness and a total lack of morals can help you.
What I really find interesting tho, and there is strenght in that, is the way Martin makes his characters evolve. And in there, he manages to make even the most evil characters almost likable.
It is actually an interesting dilemna… On the one hand, you have the good guys, who are likable, because they are good but do so many mistakes you want to slap them hard on general principles and on the other hand, you have the bad guys, who you hate due to their morals or lack thereof, but you can’t help to admire due to their ruthlessness.
I shall read the next books, simply because I would like to know how it ends, but frankly, sometimes GRRM adds too much complexity simply for the sake of complexity… At least, this is how it feels. The winter is coming but nobody really cares, except the Night Watch…
Elizabeth, that with the inner voice speaking, I think, is really spot on. I have only written one novel so far, and I cannot pretend I am able to show lots of complexity in characters, but I have an inkling of what my inner voice is trying to tell me and what good and evil mean for me.
As for the spoiler, no thanks. Beginning a reread of the first three volumes to prepare myself for Limits soonish. 🙂
Sharidann
Comment by Richard — April 2, 2013 @ 4:55 am
Rune, we now have an easy way to remember – spell Tolkien the same way as Kieri.
Comment by Jenn — April 2, 2013 @ 8:00 am
Nice commentary Elizabeth!
It could also be a commentary on society today. You have the morally complex and the morally ambiguous and then throw in the fact that we have lost the ability to disagree with each other civilly and people wonder at the problems we create for ourselves.
Comment by Jenn — April 2, 2013 @ 8:03 am
GinnyW
I once took a psych eval. that asked:
“Would people consider you moral and proper?” y/n
I circled both. I have been told I am moral but I have never been accused of being proper.
Comment by elizabeth — April 2, 2013 @ 9:28 am
Sharidann: Even in my unaffiliated years, when I was working out what I thought about the universe on my own, I did not find ruthlessness admirable. Perhaps because of my generation (young enough to know still-young adults who had fought in WWII or fled the Nazis) and possibly because the books I read touting the virtues of ruthlessness were so badly written (Ayn Rand…that woman could clumsy up a sentence in fewer words than almost anyone else. One of the groups at college was Rand-enthusiastic; I recoiled by page 20 or so and thought “Bad ideas, badly written, blech.” One had to read at least one all the way–or almost all the way–through, but it was a long slog.) Not to say that an evil person could not be charming–socially adept, pleasant until the moment he or she was turning the knife in your guts–but not admirable. Strength is indeed attractive and so is smart…but I can’t help looking under/behind/around the curtain. Means there’s stuff I might otherwise enjoy that I just can’t.
From your description, it sounds as if Martin has simply inverted the trope that makes villains stupid and heroes smart, in making the good guys stupid and the bad guys smart. That was, and remains, a popular idea–that being or trying to be good makes you a fool and a patsy. Interestingly enough, Pat Robertson (not one of my heroes! just came out with a similar approach to why we don’t see miracles in this country–we’re too smart for our own good. Nice humble ignorant Africans (his reasoning, not mine!) get miracles because they’re uneducated and humble and thus have real faith. (As someone at Juanita Jean’s pointed out, Robertson seems to think the miracle of Jesus on a tortilla is superior miracles that provide safe drinking water, adequate food, and protection from deadly diseases.) Handy self-justification for crooks (who often do, in fact, think they’re smarter than everyone else, even when they’ve just done someting really stupid and got caught doing it.)
The axis of stupid/smart does not run parallel to the axis of good/bad. That’s the weird fun thing about humans: there’s an axis of just about everything (stupid/smart, prudent/risk-taking, careful/careless, bold/timid, no musical ear/absolute pitch, can’t-train-a-horse-to-eat-oats/horse whisperer, athlete/klutz, etc.) and an individual can map out anywhere on any of them without relation to any of the others. My voice coach commented once that having an innately beautiful voice–a voice that makes voice coaches quiver with anticipation–can be linked to zero innate musical sensitivity, and the person who “gets” the most complicated music may be unable to sing or even play an instrument. I’ve seen riders who were physically “built” to ride, but could not “get” horses and thus could not get the cooperation from their mount that a less talented rider (in terms of physical build, strength, etc.) could get from theirs. I have met brilliant good people/bad people, middling good people/bad people, and not-really-bright good people/bad people with amazing spreads of ability/inability. (And I have an autistic son: talk about splinter skills and splinter deficits!!)
Comment by elizabeth — April 2, 2013 @ 9:28 am
Rune: Phonetics rears its head…I should check that every single time, because I cannot remember it.
Comment by elizabeth — April 2, 2013 @ 9:29 am
Richard…Oh. Maybe I CAN remember it now.
Comment by elizabeth — April 2, 2013 @ 9:33 am
Jenn: When you have that major split in world-view, that goes right down to the visceral “feel” of what we take as reality, civil disagreement is much more difficult. But also–the social upheavals of the late 19th and 20th century made civility and courtesy–the social rules of conduct–into a synonym for dishonesty and “covering up” the cruelty and injustice. Which sometimes it was, but not always. Discourtesy became popularly associated with honesty, the “plain man,” the person who “spoke his mind”. And for those who acknowledge no rules, but only personal preference and Will…the conventions of courtesy are meaningless, useless, and to be avoided.
Comment by elizabeth — April 2, 2013 @ 9:36 am
Jenn: I’ve been told both, about both. I do not meet anyone’s standard of perfection (certainly not my own!)
Comment by Gareth — April 2, 2013 @ 11:07 am
Tried GRRM but failed to get any emotional attachment to the book. I like books where I care about characters, not always liking the characters but emotionally involved to some degree. I found myself skipping forwards because I frankly couldn’t care less about what happened to some characters.
Miller and Lee’s Liaden are interesting because with the ‘Code’ you have a degree of formalised politeness with underlying cut throat competition, but you care about the characters.
There are sections of Deed that I still can’t read without tears coming to my eyes, and you don’t get that from just clever plotting or might is right. You get that from characters you care about and empathise with – good but stupid wouldn’t do it. Harder to care if the character always does dumb things. Clever alone wouldn’t do it. For me you need believable characters that I care about.
Comment by Sharidann — April 2, 2013 @ 12:04 pm
Elizabeth: in my eyes, Rafe Dunbager (whom I like and equate to one good guy) is ruthless and it is a quality I admire in him. I don’t equate being ruthless in being evil, far from it.
I personnally have a hard time admiring evil characters.
What Martin does quite well is twisting your view of a character… For example, someone you think of as completely evil is actually not THAT bad or even good under some respects. And someone you think is the sheer image of rectitude commits acts which make you shudder.
As for the good guys being a bit dumb, I would say… It is even worse than that, it is their goodness and rectitude, their willingness to be good which brings their downfall… ( I am voluntarily not giving any example to avoid delivering spoilers, even though the last book is now two years out).
I agree completely with your “axis” theory in human beings….
Gareth: I agree, some books go right through your soul for some reason and for me, it has always to do with the human factor and the human story behind it, with the characters… not with the plot.
Comment by Wickersham's Conscience — April 2, 2013 @ 3:27 pm
The single book I’ve read that illustrates your points best, I think, is Ford Maddox Ford’s “A Good Soldier.” Not only is the narrator foolish – a trope you used less forcefully in the first two Paks books – but what first seems morally ambiguous turns out to be morally complex. Briefly (spoiler alert) the Good Soldier isn’t.
I lost interest in SOIAF after the first book. I’m unwilling to invest emotionally in an author who whacks every sympathetic character. Absent emotional investment, I’m not gong to slog through five books (and counting) or wait out GRRM’s sluggish writing speed.
Finally, @Sharidann, to me ruthlessness implies either amorality or immorality. A moral person moderates ruthless with mercy.
Comment by Genko — April 2, 2013 @ 5:38 pm
I appreciate the distinction you’re making, Elizabeth. It does seem that “moral ambiguity” is being raised to some sort of virtue as a replacement for moral complexity, which all of us have to some extent at least, and which makes us interesting people after all. It’s a little like the elevation of “tough love” to be the best parenting style, which I believe has been used to justify a fair amount of child abuse. Perhaps it’s just another rationalization for immoral and/or unethical behavior.
I loved it when Paks was learning about being a paladin, and that instruction that “while a demon can’t eat your soul as a paladin, any village idiot can crush your skull with a rock. By accident.” And the distinction between smart and good, and helpful or unhelpful. All those axes of being, and you really can’t conflate them. Pitch and tempo really aren’t supposed to be connected, though a lot of people do connect them, much to my ear’s chagrin.
I also agree that the biggest part of what makes a story good is when you can care about a character. And in order to care about a character I have to be able to identify at least somewhat with them — a certain level of intelligence, some level of trying to do the right thing, some ideals and dreams of creating a better world (whatever that might be — and I need for their concept of that to be at least somewhat similar to mine, or at least something that I can relate to). Otherwise, why bother?
Yes, in the Liaden universe, the Code is there to allow people to function as they need to. They exhibit plenty of real human feelings, needs, hopes, dreams, etc., and that makes them lovable. Those characters who lose themselves into the Code and try to make it the be-all, end-all of existence are widely seen as pests at best. And yet we see those same kinds of rule-bound people here in our universe, so we recognize them. We may not like them, but they ring true on some level.
Maybe the problem with ruthlessness is that single-minded pursuit of something without any other considerations impinging. Especially without any consideration of the effects on other people.
Comment by Moira — April 2, 2013 @ 10:36 pm
Hi all, I’m still lurking and following the discussions as best I can.
I like the distinction Elizabeth makes between moral complexity vs moral ambiguity. It’s perhaps a discussion (an extended discussion!) that should be mandatory in all Ethics and/or Civics classes. Constant exposure to an idea breeds acceptance of that idea; it can work both positively and negatively (yes, gay people should be able to marry vs yes, it’s ok to be ruthless and totally lacking in compassion). In our society, we’re being inundated with images and ideas that lack the things that make us human: reason, compassion, empathy and so on.
I read the first three GRRM books because a friend sent them to me one Christmas – interestingly, because he knew I was a Tolkien nut. Hmm. I’ve had absolutely no desire to get the other books, or – startlingly, for me – to re-read the first three. I have to give GRRM his props: he writes a bloody good yarn (literally). And he creates characters that are fascinating. But, simply put (and in complete contrast to Tolkien and our esteemed hostess), he creates a world that I just don’t want to inhabit. That’s sad.
I would even go further, as I think Elizabeth perhaps suggested: there is no moral ambiguity in ASOIAF. It’s amoral. And that’s what I find so off-putting. Disturbing, even.
It’s not that I want my fantasy to be squeaky clean or rose-colored. But I do want some sort of validation / affirmation of my own morality, such as it is. The moral complexity comes into play when “good” characters are capable of doing evil, and “evil” characters can do good (sometimes even intentionally). Well, guess what: that’s life. We’re not two-dimensional creatures and we don’t inhabit a two-dimensional world. Convincing, absorbing fantasy (or fiction of any flavor) reflects the sort of three-dimensional world we want to spend time in… like Paksworld. There’s evil, and bad things happen, but the moral order is one we can relate to and feel comfortable with.
So I think I’ve waffled enough. It’s time for a cup of tea!
Comment by Sully — April 3, 2013 @ 12:20 pm
“My voice coach commented once that having an innately beautiful voice–a voice that makes voice coaches quiver with anticipation–can be linked to zero innate musical sensitivity, and the person who “gets” the most complicated music may be unable to sing or even play an instrument.” I know a violist like that. Fantastic, wonderful teacher. But her playing is a bit less than impressive. Or even competent. It was a mystery of the music building where we were music majors together.
Comment by Genko — April 3, 2013 @ 7:07 pm
Yes, I remember a person in a choir I sang in once who had a lot of knowledge of music and could hear when things went wrong and had opinions about how things should be. But her voice was/is screechy, that’s all there is to it. I’ve always found solos by her to be painful, though she wasn’t too bad when surrounded by other voices in a choir. She didn’t seem to know this about herself.
I also remember a professor in college who had a great syllabus and in some ways was a good teacher, but a very poor lecturer. Fortunately, he played to his strengths and had us do a lot of group work (which is not my favorite thing, oh well). Don’t know why he couldn’t speak well about his subject, which he obviously knew a lot about, but there you go.
Comment by Tuttle — April 3, 2013 @ 9:47 pm
The winter is coming but nobody really cares…
And here is the crux of the matter. I don’t think Martin’s point is that “good is stupid” so much as it is that being good in summer is easy. Ned Stark was a good man. But he lived in a long summer. The first cold wind took his head off.
Sansa Stark survived the first winds of winter. They shattered her naivety but also blew away the brattishness that made her, for all her idealistic goodness, such a loathsome little girl. She’s a better, more empathetic person four years later and promises to be an infinitely more effective force for good than her father ever was. She has become cleverer and certainly harder – perhaps even ruthless – but the core of decency has withstood her travails. She has become, in short, a very morally complex character. Winter demands it.
I do not think it is moral ambiguity in characterization that makes ASoIaF so distasteful to many so much as a moral ambiguity in the world itself. The “great evil” is winter. Even it’s zombie apocalyptic elements don’t seem motivated by a malevolent will so much as a simple antithesis to life. Like Moira said, it’s not somewhere you’d want to be and that makes it difficult to enjoy on that level. I’d love to visit Lothlorien or Fin Panir, but I’m staying on the boat when the cruise reaches Kings Landing thankyouverymuch.
OK, the utterly abominable pacing probably turns some people off as well. These last two books have been like rock climbing levels of DEEP HURTING!. Really, only the depth of characterization makes me even consider buying the next one.
Comment by Celina — April 4, 2013 @ 9:06 am
I read four of GRRM’s books, and at first I thought they were all right, but then it got just too dark. All the characters I cared for either died or did something disgusting that made me dislike them so much that I stopped caring about them. And I can’t read a book without caring about the characters in it. But I have to confess that one characters death pleased me greatly (you guys who have read all the books can problary guess who 😉 )
Comment by Avidreader — April 4, 2013 @ 1:13 pm
First time poster here.
I have to agree with everything in the above article. And the thing is I like dark fantasy. I like all fantasy truth be told, but right now I’m in a dark fantasy phase. The reason I like it is because I like to see heroes fight against near impossible odds and win. I like the moral conflicts about how far the ends justify the means.
In a world where all the characters are either morally ambiguous or stupid that dynamic does not come into play. How can anyone have a debate, internal or external,about choosing the lesser of two evils if the concepts of good an evil aren’t even acknowledged.
I’ll give an example from a series I read recently Joseph Delaney’s Wardstone Chronicles.
Moderate spoilers below for the first 2 books in the series.
This is a world where the source of all magic is evil and magic is quite prevalent and powerful.
One of the heroes is a witch. For reasons that become obvious in latter books she is a very strong witch, she does not have to acquire power the usual way, which is pretty horrible, her power is innate. In spite of this she refuses to use magic even running away from her witch relatives and saving the protagonist in book 1 out of empathy and compassion. In book 2 however she makes a pact with a demon to save some people who were wrongfully accused of being whiches reasoning that the supernatural evil she is using is going to cause less harm then the purely human evil of burning people alive to steal their positions and to satisfy the crowd’s bloodlust. Ultimately she tricks the demon into imprisoning itself fully expecting to die as she is in the trap with it.
She survives and this sets up an interesting character arc though basically how many times can she look into the abyss even with the best of intentions before it consumes it. This is great at building suspense as the way the series is written it could go either way.
The reason for the above example is to show that a setting can be very dark indeed and still have a strong moral component. Indeed the moral values of the characters are put to harsher test when there is no clear external source of good and the only light the characters can find is within themselves.
Comment by patrick — April 4, 2013 @ 2:08 pm
I like the idea of understanding tales being told with an underlying “moral” or “amoral” concept of behavior. It explains why several well written fantasy series with an amoral basis have no appeal to me. I can usually slog through a single novel like that, but I seldom will pick up succeeding books in such a series. I don’t require than the ‘good guys’ always win, but I do want to see some sense that morality matters. What we experience in reading does influence our behavior in life.
And I don’t care to escape into an amoral world, even for a well-told tale.
Comment by Martin LaBar — April 5, 2013 @ 4:14 am
Well said. Thanks!
The April 1 _Christianity Today_ commentary on “Game of Thrones” draws a similar conclusion:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/march-web-only/grim-image-of-game-of-thrones.html?paging=off
Comment by GinnyW — April 5, 2013 @ 7:28 am
I have had a bit more time to think, and to appreciate the comments of others. I have to say that I did not like Game of Thrones enough to want to read the following books. Part of that is that I do not tend to like “dark” fiction.
What triggered my comments about history and values and morals is that I like characters who have or develop a sense of being a small piece of a larger world, and are capable of subordinating themselves to the greater good. That is, they are (or think they are) contributing to a future that will be better than their present, or making the present more livable for the people around them. I do not necessarily always agree as to what “better” means. That is ethics. Morals do not always take into account the larger whole, especially if taken as a rigid rule book. In Paksworld, we encounter this kind of “morals but not ethics” in some of the more rigid Girdsmen. They are moral, but can not seem to see or adapt to the larger picture.
In Game of Thrones, some people were moral, perhaps even ethical. But the moral people do not contend for the throne, and the contenders for the throne are more concerned with getting what they think is due them by heredity or superiority than with being good for the kingdom. I perceive this as being unethical and unhistorical. It is unhistorical in the sense that it is all oriented toward obtaining power or wealth now, and never mind the future consequences for the kingdom as a whole. Not unhistorical in the sense of people have never acted this way in the real world.
I have to say that, although I don’t like to read such books, there is a place in our own present for books that make it clear just how dark and destructive such behavior can be.
Comment by Richard — April 5, 2013 @ 5:21 pm
Characters capable of contributing etc. – I think you are spot on there Ginny. Sympathetic characters in Paksworld do get whacked (as Wickersham’s Conscience put it) precisely because of what makes them sympathetic, but their lives mean something and their actions are worth the price tag.
Canna and Saben were killed trying to get word through to the Duke rather than heading for somewhere safely away from the action. Gird, unable to ignore his cow’s distress, went out to be found and cursed by iynisin. Stammel would still have his sight if he’d kept quiet about recognising Kory.
Between morals, morality, ethics and ethos is a linguistic quagmire that it might be fun to navigate, especially with the help of guidebooks from those who’ve been there before. But we don’t need those words straight to follow the issues of good and evil, and conflicts within the moral dimension (dimensions?) that Elizabeth’s characters are playing out for us. We’ve seen a lot already and there is obviously more coming. Indeed we may come to see in retrospect that the present books in particular are in large part an exploration, through examples, of the moral nature of the various human and non-human groups in Paksworld.
Comment by Rolv — April 9, 2013 @ 12:10 pm
Excellent post, excellent thread.
Yes, moral complexity and moral ambiguity are totally different. And amorality or moral ambiguirty are not more realistic than moral complexity, nor than moral certitude.
Those who regard Tolkien’s character to be cardboard good or bad, only reveal their own lack of understanding. It ought to be enough, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, to consider that Gollum was finally pushed over the edge to betrayal by harsh words from Sam, the most selfless character in the whole story.
Comment by pjm — April 10, 2013 @ 6:43 pm
I find myself agreeing with most of what has been said in this thread. Like many of you I began “A Game of Thrones”, but I have found it hard to get interested in later books. This thread has helped me to crystallise why.
I have a quibble about “moral ambiguity”, which to me means having multiple moral interpretations rather than no morality at all.
Peter
Comment by Moira — April 10, 2013 @ 10:26 pm
GinnyW said:
“In Game of Thrones, some people were moral, perhaps even ethical. But the moral people do not contend for the throne, and the contenders for the throne are more concerned with getting what they think is due them by heredity or superiority than with being good for the kingdom.”
As Gore Vidal said:
“Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.”
Hmm.
Since we are all a product of our environment, I guess we can’t blame it all on GRRM…!
*tongue perhaps slightly in cheek*
*but only slightly*
Comment by Richard — April 11, 2013 @ 2:05 am
Moira, Arthur C. Clarke said the same (about political office in general) – I wonder who said it first.
Peter, that is exactly Elizabeth’s complaint: that moral complexity and moral ambiguity have both been confused not just with each other but with amorality too.
By the way, thanks to my grandfather I have some of Robert Ardrey’s books from the late ’60s (what has happened since I know not), in which he sees in social-territorial animals an ingrained “biological morality” with a fundamental dichotomy, that of the team player – love your fellows, but – for their sake – hate and do evil unto rival teams (families, tribes, nations).
Comment by Karen — April 11, 2013 @ 6:21 am
Late to the party, but really glad to have arrived at a point where everyone has already waxed brilliant enough that my own fascination/obsession with this subject will not, I hope, offend.
I decided over twenty-five years ago, while I was a young and idealistic college student, that I was going to choose my entertainment purely on the basis of whether or not its creators seemed to share my core values. There were certain genres that were thus easily ruled out (most horror, all porn, most “action” movies, and quite a bit of “serious” drama/literature).
I actually think it was the smartest decision I’ve ever made because it has allowed me to live in universes that truly challenge my emotions and intellect — as well as my own core morality instead of just numbing my soul.
To me, anything that presents moral ambiguity as remotely interesting is a deliberate attempt to numb me to morality itself.
I didn’t actually make this decision out of pureness of heart as out of the realization that, after awhile, all anti-heroes and “morally ambiguous” characters start to look the same. They do not struggle with good or evil, they simply do what they want to do. What they want to do may differ from one character or another, but it still boils down to, “I will do whatever I want to do,” which, once you’ve sussed out the character’s desires, makes their actions entirely predictable.
Someone gave me the audio-book version of what I think was the first book in the Game of Thrones series. I had never heard of it, so I gave it about half an hour of my time. I confess that I would still like that half-hour back. Beyond the purple prose and senseless action without meaning, I immediately recognized the signs of “and I’m not going to like how things turn out.”
So, if I sound rigid and judgmental to anyone, tough cookies. This approach to entertainment led me to Paksworld, and to many enjoyable hours with characters I feel are honest and real and true (without being simplistic in any way). There are no “Mary-Sue’s” (I actually hate that term violently, but it’s the one used by people who prefer the writing of the GRRMs of the world, so I’ll use it to refute them) in any of our gracious hostess’s books. There are only people I would deeply like to know so that I could call them up and chat, or share a mug of sib with as we stand the night watch, knowing that, should trouble come, they’ll have my back.
Comment by Moira — April 11, 2013 @ 2:00 pm
Richard – Arthur C? Didn’t know that one. I actually looked up the quote expecting to confirm that it was James Thurber!
Eh, who knows who said it originally, but it’s one worth repeating.
Comment by Richard — April 12, 2013 @ 12:45 am
Moira, Clarke’s Songs of Distant Earth chapter 11 for one example (the first I can remember where to find, but not I think his only or even his first airing of the thought): “anyone who deliberately aimed at the job [of head of state] should automatically be disqualified”.
Comment by Moira — April 12, 2013 @ 11:41 pm
Richard,
Thanks for the citation! It’s many years since I read any Arthur C. Clarke, but I read a ton of it when I was a kid. Long overdue for a revisit!
I was lucky that my dad was a huge SF reader – REAL science fiction, not the soapy dopey space opera that we get so much of these days. (Not that such can’t be mildly entertaining, or even extremely entertaining in rare instances like Star Wars. One of the reasons I enjoyed the Serrano series so much was that it harked back to the good old days in that sense: using plausible scientific advances to build the framework of a new world / galaxy and using that world as a microscope to examine, from a fresh perspective, the unchanging facets of human nature.)
But I digress. As usual! 😉
Comment by Karen — April 13, 2013 @ 4:27 am
Moira,
I don’t think citing the Serrano series is a digression. Not in the least.
I know I may have sounded a bit smug by proclaiming that I have values that determine what I read, but one of my values is good science.
I, too, find it difficult to take much hand-wavium seriously as true S.F. (although I may love it for its fantasy/allegory/folk-tale elements).
But I don’t think that literary genre is as important to me as having the writer be someone who has values that show in what they write.
I love Star Wars. I also loved Farscape. One might argue over which employed more hand-wavium (especially if you include the Star Wars sequals). What I really responded to in the first Star Wars trilogy, though, had completely disappeared when the next installations began, which suggests to me that something happened in the heart of the creator of the universe that I’m not interested enough to discuss.
To me, though, the Serrano series was interesting and complex not only because good science is one of my values but also because I’m pretty sure it was written by someone who already had a good grasp on her own morality, and therefore was able to write moral complexity without ever stopping to think that that was what she was doing.
Comment by Karen — April 13, 2013 @ 5:12 am
Apologies for the double post, but I’m having a bout of insomnia, so I just finished watching a NOVA episode I somehow missed about the Great Escape (it was on Y@#T@#$@, if WWII history interests you and you didn’t get to view it during the original broadcast).
Amazing. Listening to just a few of the actual participants (all in their 90s when it was taped) is a veritable lesson in the fact that none of those men fought for their right to be ambiguous about morality. The conclusion actually brought tears to my eyes that the movie version never did, as much as I admire that particular movie.
Comment by Richard — April 13, 2013 @ 5:46 am
Moira, intelligent digression is a large part of what makes this site so worth visiting. (It is also part of why I am about to watch this weekend – and listen to – the BBC’s coverage of the last two afternoons at the Augusta golf tournament.)
OK, so let GRRM’s canon be the literary equivalent of a disaster movie, full of the amoral, the immoral and the haplessly innocent. (I don’t think I’ll be reading it but it sounds as though, if I did, I’d be rooting for nemesis to come over the Wall and sweep most away.) I’m still trying to get my head around what we mean – what we should mean – by a “morally ambiguous character”. As distinct from morally ambivalent as well as from complex.
How a story can be morally ambiguous I’m clear about, likewise a choice.
If an author refuses, or fails, to reveal what makes a character tick, that’s an ambiguous character, whom we are not being told enough about to identify with. The character may still be worth following for other reasons, especially if the author meant to tease us, but from an outside POV.
(Not exactly the unexplained category, but I’m thinking Sherlock Holmes as an example – we enjoy seeing him at work but identify with Watson.)
Character A can act ambiguously from B’s viewpoint – either they have different frames of reference – come from different cultures – or A means to confuse B. At the simplest level, there are two things I remember Captain Pugwash for – one is the signature tune, the other the time he sailed between two hostile fleets displaying Engish colours on one side and French the other – but got them the wrong way round! (In that little cartoon, his cabin boy is our hero.)
After disposing of such cases, and of Luap who was just morally incompetent, what do we think of Paks herself in her first two books?
Comment by Karen — April 13, 2013 @ 6:25 am
Richard,
Do you mind if I comment while I’m still courting sleep (and thus not as clever as I might be on my best days)?
I’d say that the original Sherlock Holmes (as opposed to all of the adaptations, re-imaginations, or just celluloid versions) was intended to be at least slightly morally complex. His saving grace was always his drive to bring criminals to justice even though pride and substance addiction were definitely his achilles heels. But I also think it’s an easier question, based on the fact that the books were nearly foundational to the entire mystery genre, which used to be all about the idea that Justice could be discovered by vigilant pursuit of the Truth.
(I’m about to set my laptop to play an episode of Perry Mason, a T.V. character who definitely straddled the edge more in the Raymond Chandler books, but who nevertheless always exposes both innocence and guilt as a bed-time story, so I don’t really see much moral ambiguity in the classic tropes of the early mystery genre.)
And I don’t know if I think Luap was morally incompetent. I think he may have had two left feet when he needed to dance the dance of being compared to Gird, but I think most of his problems came from genuine social awkwardness. I haven’t read the book in several years, but I never thought that Luap was either immoral or amoral. I just thought that he found it so difficult to understand and empathize with those around him that he often did things that were either maladroit or just plain antagonized the people with whom he was trying to work.
Paks is a character that I find entirely impossible to classify as anything BUT morally complex. Even when she was just learning her way (and therefore making many mistakes), she wanted to do good because of her initial dreams of what it meant to become a soldier.
Comment by Catmadknitter — April 13, 2013 @ 6:52 pm
(disclosure, I play RPGs)
Karen- are you so tired of the idea that any good-aligned female character is a Mary Sue? Being good-aligned doesn’t make you a milquetoast or boring. When my life is Interesting it often because I am being tested for being good-aligned.
Consequently I tend to use the other Mary Sue definition- cut-out so reader can imagine herself as character. To me this is sooooo dull. I want to see out of the character’s (or s’) eyes! I know what *I* think/feel, I want to be challenged!
Richard- i would not call a young Paks morally ambiguous, but instead I would choose inexperienced. Yes, her family did inculcate morals, but she found them to be… confining? I like confining. Anyway, she wanted to see more and be different. Mistakes Were Made, but we could also see her learning from them as she moved out of moral ambiguity.
(further disclosure, I grew up Episcopal in the Bible Belt)
Popular media and politics seems to really fear, nay, even phobia, the idea of moral complexity. “These are the bad people and we kill them, the good people are over there and they applaud” is painfully close to how some folk think we should all act. I think it is *wonderful* that Elizabeth addresses this in Paksworld. Young Paks, a few soldiers, and some Girdish Marshals do know where the line is and have the courage to hold it against an obvious evil, but when the time comes to think? Paks and some soldiers learn, but others including Those Marshals revert to what my husband calls “Lawful Blind” (or Lawful Stupid) and wind up causing more harm due to failure to see, think, and change. When I was younger this infuriated me, but as I grow I find some compassion- such fear they must feel every day! It must be exhausting.
Now let us take a page from the morally rigid. If you will not allow that grey exists, and you feel that if it is not all white it must then be all black, then moral complexity is going to look an awful lot like moral ambiguity. I am very uncomfortable with this- I do not feel that someone struggling to find a good path in difficult situations should be tarred with the same brush as, oh say Donald Trump (though that level of greed and self-involvement isn’t really ambiguous, is it?).
sorry if this is jagged- some of it has been mulling under my Praxis test which I took today.
Comment by Moira — April 13, 2013 @ 11:56 pm
Karen said:
” What I really responded to in the first Star Wars trilogy, though, had completely disappeared when the next installations began, which suggests to me that something happened in the heart of the creator of the universe that I’m not interested enough to discuss.”
IMHO, what happened can probably be summed up in one word: Hollywood.
Richard: I can’t remember which side of the Atlantic you’re on, but as a Brit living in the US, boy! I can appreciate your comment on BBC coverage. US sports coverage is a study in inanity. (Yes, of course there are exceptions, but like Mary Carillo & ESPN, they don’t always last. Sad.)
I also appreciate your point about moral ambiguity vs a morally ambiguous character. As you say, it all comes down to the author – have they figured it all out behind the scenes, or are they morally ambiguous themselves, perhaps? Another nod of appreciation in Elizabeth’s direction…
Comment by Catmadknitter — April 14, 2013 @ 12:35 pm
Moira- I have very bad news. Th last vhs release included a long interview with Mr. Lucas wherein he said that he couldn’t do what he wanted with the effects so he had to add plot and character development. I only thought I was horrified at the time. Then Phantom Menace came out…
Comment by Richard — April 16, 2013 @ 2:09 pm
Yes, whatever we think of Sherlock Holmes as a CHARACTER, Conan Doyle’s original STORIES are moral ones because in them the innocent are vindicated and villains get their comeuppance.
Elizabeth, going back to the beginning, I see what you have done – quoted a definition of “moral ambiguity” that embraces (1) characters who unambiguously believe their culture’s moral framework to be a fairy story or confidence trick; and (2) characters en masse (they’d have to be from an alien culture)who unambiguously know no moral concepts at all, not even to reject.
I’d prefer to call that amorality, and reserve ambiguity for characters whose author doesn’t know whether or not they have moral concepts, or whose author hasn’t informed readers properly. Also the case where the POV character (A), whose moral framework readers do know, is in two minds, thanks to contradictory clues, about non-POV character B’s motivations and moral character. This can cover both sheep that might be wolves in sheep’s clothing, and vice versa. Yet another case: the character whose moral motivation is clear, but about whom readers, from our own moral standpoint, should be ambivalent. (Example: the masked vigilante who only attacks bad guys, but who enjoys killing them with unnecessary cruelty?)
Comment by Richard — April 18, 2013 @ 4:20 pm
A case in point: Torfinn King of Pargun’s sending of Elis to Kieri was a morally complex decision by his own lights (made worse by how he did it); but the Pargunese restrictions on what women should do, while causing him no heart-searching, further complicate OUR reaction to him.
Comment by GinnyW — April 23, 2013 @ 8:01 am
This thread is still fascinating. One of the things that really attracted me to Paksworld in the beginning was that although Paks is moral to begin with, it is small scale. She does ALOT of growing to see how individual actions affect more than the immediate situation.
And she confuses her morality with her loyalty to her comrades and superiors, in her perception of what drives Barra for instance. Her story provides an example of innocence as the ground of moral ambiguity – people who can not (or do not) perceive others as evil sometimes ignore or permit very wrong behavior on the part of comrades.