Post originally by tadpol at 2003-09-08 07:54:59
Converted from Phorums BB System

The book has no good and only one source of evil (the others). WHat made this book so refreshing is:

the characters - they do things for their own reasons and they have their own point of view. They are not evil, bad, good or right. @!#$ there arn't any genuine protagonists or antagonists (except the above mentioned others). @!#$ by the end of the 3rd book the characters I am backing are Tyrion, the Hound, Jaime.

politics - this book is the closest fictional work which ive read which even comes close to representing real world politics.

cause and effect - every decision, every action of any significance has reprecusions. The more powerful the character is in society the bigger the reprecusions.

I think series like these realy show how far fantasy has progressed since Tolkien spat out his questionable epic (which had much less in the terms of action, character development and genuine feeling, lots on scenery and pipe weed though).