Ice and Shadows, Bone and Song

I watched Game of Thrones, all seven--or was it eight?--seasons. Overall, I enjoyed the series, although I will probably never read the books. There's a lot to admire about George R. R. Martin's series (beginning with A Song of Ice and Fire), including the intricacy and complexity of the interwoven plots all converging upon a single, disappointing conclusion. I liked how many of the characters were three-dimensional, layered, and nuanced. That's a feat many writers struggle and do not succeed in accomplishing their own stories.

When it comes to literature, however, I'm no prude. I read and write steamy romance. I've read and written erotica, fantasy with erotic elements, and so forth. There's a good way and a bad way to go about that and Martin inevitably chooses those aspects of explicit content that wallow in violence and degradation, particularly regarding the treatment of women.

I get it. His work is based on the same kind of social environment as England's 100 Years War. It was brutal. Women were legally chattel and treated as such: as pawns, as objects, as prizes or burdens. Martin's work, however, seems to revel in that brutality and the inhumanity of humans toward their own kind.

Recently I watched the first season of Shadow and Bone, a TV series based on Leigh Bardugo's Grisha trilogy. At first, the differences are obvious. This is steampunk, not medieval fantasy. We have magic and fantasy juxtaposed against the Industrial Revolution (firearms, trains, etc.) to form a world of dramatic and often seedy contrasts overlaid by a thin veneer of civility.

I seldom read steampunk, but this story caught my interest and--even more importantly--held it. Although Bardugo's work is targeted toward young adult (i.e., adolescent) readers, this world is also brutal, rife with criminals, political intrigue, raiders, etc. It caters far less to prurience and more to the give and take of human relationships. It also adds a level of sophistication that I find the Game of Thrones series lacks, even if the characters aren't quite as deep or layered.

In watching Shadow and Bone, I enjoy the clarity of Bardugo's less complicated characters. Kaz, a criminal, holds himself to a standard of honor; Jesper, a gunslinger, livens the drama with sly humor and characterization that puts him at the very edge of buffoonery. Witch hunter Matthias struggles with his growing realization that the Grisha (i.e., witch), Nina, whom he captures isn't the incarnation of evil he was taught to believe. The main female protagonist, Alina, slowly discovers who and what she is. There's little in the way of instant realization and recognition.

Perhaps my favorite character in Bardugo's series is General Kirigan. Actor Ben Barnes, who has matured considerably since his Chronicles of Narnia days, carries off the multifaceted character with aplomb. Sensual and calculating, kind and ruthless, this character is a masterpiece of villain whose corruption grew from a seed of necessary and justified revolution to stop the systematic persecution the Grisha, people with occult powers.

Moreso than the characters in Game of Thrones, the characters of Shadow and Bone are, first and foremost, human.

I see a lot of similarity between this villain and the USA's current governing administration: a leftist movement that believes in its own goodness even as it vies for world domination by means fair and foul. In Game of Thrones, I see the entrenchment of a feudal system that works for the society it governs, the mockery of ideas antithetical to its survival, but not oppression or persecution of those radical ideas--at least not until such ideas threaten the ruling class.

Connecting current political ideologies to fiction is sometimes a stretch, especially in fantasy, but the similarities exist. Whether this speaks to the inability of writers to imagine governing systems beyond actual historical practice or the propensity of writers to integrate that with which they are familiar into their work for the comfort of their readers, I don't know. For those looking to connect fiction to politics, look no further than George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984.

Regardless of genre, I think the mark of a good story is whether it lingers in your mind and makes you want more, rather than leaving a bad taste in your mouth. That's what every storyteller strives for.

Every word counts.

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