George RR Martin on Whether the Gods are Real in Game of Thrones
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- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
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A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones Author George R. R. Martin Interview on the Gods of Westeros and more
Only one of the gods is actually real -- Tomorra, the God of Procrastination.
Fuck man, that's real
Ok, I lol'd
I wonder if can get days off to practice my new religion lol
And what do you say to the god of procrastination? Not today
@@jonasgulbrandsen7816 Well played. So very well played.
Fans : Sooooo... About the last two books...
George: you see there are two kinds of writers
What
@@zarifiqbal2829 The gardener and the architect
george rr martin is no robot. at the moment many of his friends are dead or dying, so he is surely not always in the mood to write. (also his age must be taken in to account)
@@Manwendlil yeah plus he is obese
Dude's one cheeseburger away from a heart attack
@@Manwendlil
At the moment many of his friends are dead or dying? Even if that’s true, what’s the excuse for the entire decade before this moment? It doesn’t take 10 years to write a book. Any book. Face it, the man is experiencing the mother of all writer’s blocks and has no idea how to get to his ending. He will never finish this series.
The impression I got was that the new gods were figures from a Legend that were Deified over time, while the old gods, the many faced God, and the Lord of Light were clearly present, but more mysterious, unknowable entities
I had a thought once, The Seven are 7 aspects of a single God and I realized that that God is the Lord of Light. Like the Pink Floyd album cover when you split a ray of light you get a rainbow.
C T That’s a really interesting idea!
The difference between seven and drowned god followers vs lord of light and many faced followers, is that the former are not shown to have any functional magic they would attribute to their religion but the latter are. But just because the latter have magic and they attribute it to their religion, doesn't mean their religion is actually true, priests of one religion or another certainly can't be considered reliable sources in this question.
In case of worship of old gods, it's heavily hinted that the old nameless gods as much as they exist at all are really remnants of past greenseers, Brynden Rivers is basically set up as a fledgling old god. The warlocks in Qarth are in a similar status of wannabe godlings, except they have the bad luck of getting set of fire. And of course "visions from lord of light" are frequently shown to be unreliable. And of course there is the White Walker worship that some wildlings practice, good luck figuring out if that counts as a "true religion" or not.
There are mages both human and non-human in song of ice and fire, some of them are shown to pose as gods and some of them are shown to hang around well past normal human lifespan.
All that is set up such that it's basically impossible to figure out if any of the gods set up in the story actually exist or if so, then how godly they actually are.
Just like real Life ☺️
@@aleksandersuur9475 The visions from the Lord of Light aren't unreliable. Its just that they are usually interpreted incorrectly.
I do respect George for leaving so many things open to interpretation. It really adds depth to the world.
I guess that’s why he’s leaving his books up to interpretation as well haha 😢
No, it's stupid and a cop out. He said in past interview that he was the "god" in a sense because he's the writer and makes all the decisions. He can decide on any whim wether or not and he refuses to tell people.
@@kylevernon ??
@@kylevernon it's not a cop out. Why should the characters of a fictional universe have the answer when we don't have the answer in real life. And either way you slice it acting like you do know the answer is pretentious narcissism. So leaving it open leaves your in universe culture open
@@PrinceIsot Yes, it is a boring cop out for a fantasy series. Leaving it totally open to interpretation is the opposite of adding depth to a fantastical universe. GRRM writes from so many different character viewpoints that he could easily address this question for readers without answering it in-universe. For example - writing from the viewpoint of a god. OR, writing from the viewpoint of a character who fictionalized a god or religion that went on to actually become popular and accepted. Or both - which would still leave it open to some interpretation while actually adding depth.
Beric Dondarrion: I’ve come back from death 5 times, each time leaving a part of my soul behind me in the infinite void..
Lem Lemoncloak: *bullshit*
This is the comment I didn't know I came here for LOL
Lol
Who the fuck is Lem Lemoncloak and why do I want him on Arya's list?
@@shawnshazam1912 if you read the books you’d know. He is one of many characters not in the tv show.
@@XDviper45 I've read the books but I can't recall him. Maybe my memory was wiped by the men in black.
Thanks for providing me with a healthy dose of escapism
I am gonna assume this is sarcastic? It's the internet so it can be a bit hard to tell at times.
Yea it’s needed in these dark times.
Fantasy is a nice escape when shit as crazy as it is rn
Unlike GRRM's normal work lol
i was gonna leave the same comment so I'll just put this here instead
thanks aegon :)
Wow, that bit about existential loneliness is super deep.
George is right, we almost never reveal our complete selves to anyone.
We show people the side of us we want them to see, so nobody ever really fully understands you as a complete being.
If I were always "myself", I would be dead a long time ago.
that's not really it. I mean, you will never be able to show somebody who you are, like, for real, in all aspects. everybodys perception is different, everybodys brain is different, everyone thinks differently. If I say A it can mean B to you, or Y or X or even 8. We connect stuff differently. So we will never be able to fully understand, to utterly communicate.
@@n00n3ynight that is really it in regards to my comment, you’re talking about a similar but different issue...
There’s a distinct difference between not fully revealing every aspect of who you are to someone who is able to understand vs being willing yet unable to due to lack of communication or understanding.
To say certain people aren’t even capable of truly understanding each other seems like a far stretch.
@@n00n3ynight That's so true. Every mind, every being is its own universe 🌌
Most if not all people don't really know themselves either.
I dunno, Ive never seen a sorceress give birth to a shadow baby in real life, or a drunk priest resurrect a man six different times...
I think that shows that magic exists and is real, but not necessarily that the gods that the people attribute the magic to exist
Here's the funny part, somewhere, somehow, there are people who actually believe they have seen things like that or even more extraordinary than that.
U need to get out more
Where have you been? I am sick of seeing that.
That proofs magic, not gods
Resurrecting Dondarian, especially after being damn near chopped in half, would probably make me a believer
Ditto.
Then you're easily fooled. It proves there is a form of a magic, doesn't prove a god does it. Think critically, not blindly.
What’s with the support for Nazism in your profile picture?
@@CorrectionUnknown magic in which derives from the god they serve
@@jacobmatthews7524 Nazi ?
Lord of light seems the most worship worthy in the GoT universe, he literally brings people back from the dead.
Yeah also the old gods with the bran stuff. The faith of the seven seems the weakest one
The Many Face God also shows super natural.
The Faith of the Seven is the weakest.
@@LordDirus007 The stranger is basically death/lord of light
@@procionemannaro2030 Yeah, is there anything we see that shows their direct influence?
@@niofalpha nope, no miracles nor magic... even the drowned god has sort of zombies and the euron stuff
I like how George is sincere with his answers. He rarely gives short and superficial replies, he knows what is his answer to the question but he also knows that he needs to tell us where he is coming from and why he came to that answer, because without that even a truthful answer would cause misunderstandings and be dishonest.
He takes his time but he isnt negligent
“He takes his time” the last book came out in 2011
Sincere lol. He gets asked a question about whether gods are real in his fictional world and can't even give a straight answer.
@@johanlassen6448 Maybe it's a spoiler. He's given away some things about his world that were initially mysteries and have yet to be resolved in the story (he recently confirmed what the Doom of Valyria was, for instance.) However, if the gods of this setting are fake and the source of their apparent power is something else altogether, or if they _are_ real, but are malevolent and messing with humanity to further sinister ends, that's a pretty big spoiler. If he has some grand plan for the gods of this setting he's not going to casually give it away in an interview, and the only way to get around that when asked "are the gods real" is to either lie or refuse to give a straight answer.
@@Talisguy And what did he confirm regarding the Doom of Valyria?
Heavily paraphrased, but this is one of my favorite moments in the books:
Davos: Your god isn't good. He's not about justice, mercy, healing, any of that. Neither are you.
Melisandre: Good and evil are children's daydreams. Your choice is the furious purifying flame of my god, or the eternal dark at the end of the world.
Davos: But....I mean.....well, I don't have to like it.
I think he is genuinely stuck. He has cast the threads of the story so wide, that it is difficult to get to an end.
I don't think so. He had been able to craft all this on his own power, it's more of a time thing in my opinion
@@lovleen Well, considering the glacial speed at which he is moving I suspect that he is either stuck with too many plot threads... or he is bored of the whole thing.
@@mecurian485 i hope it gets finished, dont want another berserk to happen
@@brasileiroloko5375 Not sure what you mean by that, but I too hope he finishes. If nothing else so as to make up for the abortion that was the final two seasons of the tv series.
@@mecurian485 What he meant was he hope it finishes before GRRM passes away, because that's what happened to the manga Berserk.
Imagine you are sitting talking to George for hours. I swear I'll never be bored
I appreciate how he's not afraid to put his simple, concise abstractions of human nature out into the world. It shows that he doesn't care to make things more convoluted than they need to be, or that he's trying to be seen as a genius. He just tries to get a sincere understanding of what's made people tick throughout history and make good stories out of it.
Some of the gods in GOT seem as real as any character - just based on the things they seem to do. "Lord of light" is the scariest, but also most effective god after all - the results of prayer, don't get more obvious when preists can bring people back from the dead! Also the "Old Gods" from the north, with the gods in the trees etc. also seem to have great power at times. But others, like "the 7" seem to have almost no effect at all, Catelyn Stark for one, prays to them often, over Ned's Old Gods and they never seem to do her much good, ever.
Catelyn Stark is literally brought back from the dead as her own kind of zombie independent of Beric and Jon so you could easily make the argument that was her gods.
@@collinrobbin The actual "resurrection" of Catelyn Stark happens after the Red Wedding in the books. If you haven't read that part, it is told from the viewpoint of the dire wolf Nymeria, or rather, Arya Stark warged into Nymeria during a "wolf dream". Nymeria is leader of the wolf super-pack of the Riverlands. The pack happen across several bodies floating in the river, downstream from the Twins. These dead are victims of the red Wedding, whom the Freys have tossed into the river like so much garbage. Arya sees, through Nymeria's eyes, one of the bodies is Catelyn Stark. Nymeria's senses somehow combine with Arya's in that moment and she takes the corpse gently by the arm and pulls it to shore. Nymeria/Arya even attacks one of the other wolves that is trying to feed on Catelyn. But then the wolves detect a group of armed (living) men on horseback, so the pack including Nymeria, quickly runs off. By their dialogue, we discover one of the men is Thoros of Myr. And Thoros too recognizes lady Catelyn, and gives her the breath of life -
@@collinrobbin no. That was through the lord of light
@@robertmaybeth3434 thoros refuses to kiss catlyn ... but beric dondarrion kisses her ..and the "flame of life" jumps from him to her
All the gods seem to be an interpretation of the same phenomenon
There’s a lot of injustice, says the host. GRRM just said his stories have a lot of realism in them. Our 21st century real world has a lot of injustice as well, so no real difference there.
George RR Martin and the Great Cthulhu sharing the thumbnail? I had to watch this video.
Shhhh it’s the drowned god 😉
I like how in the show members of the Stark family avenge one another and they don't know it. There is some justice there.
well arya is probably aware she did some vengence for the others
Before I start watching, I know the question very likely won't get the answer I want, because it is George answering and that is the exact reason I came here. Thank you George and man uploading these.
"The first person to coin the term 'Dark Ages' was believed to be Francesco Petrarca (known as Petrarch), an Italian scholar of the 14th century. He bestowed this label upon the period in which he lived as he was dismayed at the lack of good literature at that time." Tristan Hughes, Historyhit
Yeah. Germ is a shit at understanding history. Half of everything most people know about are centuries old memes.
Gotta give it to Petrarca tho, the dude did invent a whole style of sonnet after all
Nowadys would have been the Age of Light to him for the amount of furry fanfictions we have.
Really? He lived in the 1300s, that's not even considered the Dark Ages - Dark Ages is the centuries after the fall of the western Roman Empire, ie. around the 500s-900s or so.
@@livrowland171 Agreed. The quote is inaccurate in the "period in which he lived" bit. It's certainly true that Petrarch et al coined the phrase as a critique of the literature of the period they were describing though.
Your analyses of the show are always so thorough and easy to watch. Thanks for giving me healthy doses of the series during this pandemic. These are a great way to forget the atrocity that was Season 8.
Atrocity is a good way to describe season 8. I'll make the argument season 8 happened in a Star Trekkie mirror dimension. That would explain why the characters look similar but act different. Also why bells in season 8 mean surrender when proper GoT season 2 very clearly shows they don't in King's Landing.
@@pplr1 I don't see the problem with that... In season 2 it's Ser Davos' opinion that 'he's never known the bells to mean surrender', In season 8 Tyrion tells Dany that the Bells will mean surrender but she's having none of it (It would be the go to way to clearly surrender)... in both cases it doesn't result in surrender...
@@andrewmcclay9925 The problem is that in season 8 and its effort to character assassinate Dany bells suddenly do mean surrender in season 8-something indicated beyond Tyrion by the city crowds calling for the bells to ring. Yet in season 2 the bells ringing are arguably a call to arms which certainly isn't surrender. So when Davos says bells in King's Landing don't mean surrender-and he spent many years in King's Landing so he should know-he is correct. After the bells have been ringing Tyrion has much of Stannis's fleet blown up plus some fighting.
This means Tyrion should know bells don't mean surrender as well BTW since he was a big part of that battle. So D and D took a pretty hard break with earlier seasons and both what characters should know plus what bell ringing practices are when they did season 8. They also screwed up other things like soldiers with scorpions saying "fire" rather than "loose" when launching ballista bolts-if you watch prior battles in GoT the command to fire arrows was "loose" which was the actual proper command for the medieval days.
@@pplr1 Thanks for the reply. How else would they signal surrender on that scale? Bells is the obvious choice. Davos' experience indicates that 'He has never known them to mean surrender'. In fact what the Bells do mean is the death of the King (or Hand in the case of Lord Tywin in Season 4 Episode 10 or indeed Jon Arryn in Season 1 Episode 1), so why are they rung when the city is under attack in Season 2?
'Loose' is a term for a company of archers... their commander will say the following KNOCK - Put your arrows across your bow - DRAW - Pull back the bow string - LOOSE - Loose your arrows. This ensures arrows work in volley's for devastating effect. A ballista is a stationary devise that operates primarily on it's own.
As for Dany... she went around long enough saying that it was the Iron Throne that she wanted and that the she didn't believe that the people were raising secret toasts and sewing Dragon banners in her name... she believes Viscerys was a fool to believe it... I'm led to the conclusion that she does not consider them her people at all and ultimately flocking to Cersei (But that we could debate until House of The Dragon starts :D)
Actually you are correct: The command fire was not used until after the advent of fire arms. But then Aragorn says this at the Battle of Helm's Deep so if I can forgive that I can forgive this. Point about the Bell's still stands... The ringing of the Bell's is for the death of King's and Hands so why is it ringing for a siege?
My personal opinion, the Gods are not real but magic is.
And people belive that the magic has intention, that profecies are inspired by someone BUT there is no intention, there is magic and it's just another natural "force" in that world.
The more I listen to George RR Martin describe the world he imagined, the more I see how vibrant and creative his imagination really is. I feel like the last time I had an imagination even close to this was back when I was young child. Very few people have minds like this these days, especially since technology robs so many of us of our imaginations.
Really?
The more books, movies and histories I know, the more I know where he got his ideas.
For me doesnt look so imaginative, just a good writer with a lot of culture who knows hw to ensable well many diferent ideas.
I would suggest reading more, and watching /reading a lot of history stuff... that's where most good fantasy writers get their inspiration from. Plus, our actual history is basically just Game of Thrones only in a 100000 books and without dragons and ice zombies
I was having a very similar thought right before I read this comment.
@@3choblast3r4 Well, the problem of do that is that is what many others do.çFor do an original work, should read original things.
@@adamnesico You dont understand writing theory at all which is evident by your grammar. You wont end up with unoriginal work by taking inspiration from popular works, so long as you dont literally copy their work. Inspiration means taking small pieces and ideas building on them by yourself and express them differently than what already is. Finding your own voice as a writer among all the sounds is what separates the bad from the good.
I'm glad this was discussed because they never returned to that creepy story where Lord Varys recalled hearing a "voice is the fire" respond when his manhood was removed and offered to the fire god. That scene gave me chills.
I heard a good theory that it was bran, just like how Ned heard him and how Hodor heard him (if the shows stayed true)
VARYS ISN'T A FECKING LORD!!!.... SMDH.......!!!
@@Supersquigi ok but relax, karen. It's no big deal
@@Supersquigi He's frequently referred to, in universe, as Lord Varys in light of his position on the Small Council as Master of Whispers.
@@Supersquigi it's a nickname that is present in the book.
Do you throw ALL CAPS at people who say Kingslayer or The Imp?
I could listen to him all day
What a fantastic interview
Thank you aegon for keeping up the good work gets me through work everyday
Where on earth do you get all this.
My question aswell, I’ve always wondered because George don’t even do interviews no more
@@kwameobour9694 It's old interviews
@@kwameobour9694 why doesn’t he do interviews anymore? that’s really sad, I love listening to him talking about westeros
@@biteablefool3772 He has stated that he stopped attending conventions so he can focus on finishing book six and once he finishes he will start again. I'm assuming it's the same for interviews. He is, or wants to appear, fully focused on writing.
@@charlieburnham39 wants to appear lol 😂. Crazy how he wrote the first 4 books in less time it’s taken him to write the 6th.
Amazing talk
I love these vids, stay awesome Conqueror!
I swear Martin is the definition of “waiting for my turn to talk”.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him answer a questions directly
GRRM won’t ever say what the reality of this universe is, but I wonder if he secretly knows about it inside his head.
i think he's the kind of person that likes to make even himself questionate the things that he created.
As an (amateur) author, I can say that at least in my writings I have some general idea of what’s true, but sometimes I move it around
In a way he is the one true god, having created the whole thing he can controle everything...
Lady Stoneheart and Beric would be hard to explain with real world science.
@Maurits Indeed, as someone writing their own stuff with a grand pile of unknown that comes about, a good portion I leave myself clueless just cause I love that feeling and wish to treat myself to the mystery, which is very hard when some you need to tie together, but having such a large world it's easy to throw in a lot of mysteries.
Wonderful interview!.... and wonderful interviewer!
I really like that the gods are left ambiguous, it adds up to the mystery of this world. I remember first time I watched the show and the maegui told Danerys that she was a witch that could cast magic to save Kal drogo I was like "sure... esoteric bs people used to belive in the medieval ages... " and when she started to actually summon spirits I was like "wait up... what the hell is going on?!"
I know this is an old comment, but I loved how the books went. Undead show up, then we do normal politics for a bunch of chapters, then we see the dragon eggs and skulls, showing us that those are real and terryfing, then more normal chapters, then the "witch" shows up and she is just a normal old lady with good herbal knowledge. Then shit hits the fan, Daenerys births a mutated child, and the blood sacrifice awakens the dragons.
Book 2 keeps it going introducing Melisandre and the legally distinct Cthulhu worshippers
I love hearing George talk about his art
I would rather read his books, if he ever finishes them.
@@Nava9380 haha good point!
I know it’s frustrating for fans to still be waiting for the novels that will close GRRM’s series, but just listening to him talk about the world he’s created and its sheer depth makes me kind of glad that he takes his time.
It would be less frustrating if he was younger, but it looks like he will die before closing GOT
There's taking time and then there's procrastination. He just procrastinates. It's been over a decade now and that's not simply because he's crafting a masterpiece. The frustration from fans comes from knowing the series will not be finished.
@@vbun4662 this. It’s not frustrating because it takes a long time, it’s frustrating because it may never come out.
Say that again when he dies of old age and we're no closer to book six, let alone the end of the series.
@@BoneistJ I mean, it's his fucking life. We don't get to tell him how to live it. If he never finishes it, it'll be a shame because of his capability as a storyteller, but life will go on. The world isn't going to come to a standstill because he didn't finish a series of novels.
My understanding of magic in Westeros was that while it's real, there's a lot of ideas on how it works, and they're probably all wrong to some degree. And if there are gods, they are at most tangentially interested in what happens to humans or even the world as a whole.
"I certainly don't intend to bring a God onstage in any of the Ice and Fire books where a God will suddenly appear..."-- My hopes are officially dashed that Jaqen H'ghar is the Many-Faced God. I liked that theory a lot. I had also hoped that Davos had a legitimate encounter w/the Drowned God after surviving the Battle of the Black Water, particularly because he isn't a pious person in the slightest. But I guess my hopes are dashed there as well. Curses!
I feel like this means we won't see the Great Other.
@@BenMedia7 That's what he seemed to say without saying😥. Though I wonder if Bran might've in book one when the 3EC gave him a glimpse into the heart of winter and he started crying and asked "why". Although, now I think on it if Bran had seen the GO he would've reflected on it a crap ton and we know he doesn't. Hmm..
What I get from this video is that GRRM is saying that your theories could be true but he’s not going to confirm it. He’s letting you decide for yourself if you believe those were gods in the stories or not. Very ambiguous but pretty neat.
@@TheRyanryan24 Could be, though I'd argue the Jaqen theory is far less likely to be true as GRRM indicated no God would physically appear to any character. That's pretty definitive. I personally feel that if the Many Faced God dons the 'Jaqen' look when appearing to mortals (like Zeus would do), that's still the God appearing to someone or on stage to readers so it wouldn't count.
The Davos thing is interesting because if it wasn't the Drowned God that spoke to him, who was the woman? Maybe whether or not it actually was the DG isn't what's important about the encounter; what's important is what Davos believes about it. Similar to Cersei hearing the valonqar prophecy, assuming it applies to Tyrion, and how believing Tyrion would kill her shaped everything she did going forward.
If it makes you feel any better, the Children of the Forest and Bloodraven are the Old Gods, so George's statement is a bit misleading. That said, actual deities aren't a thing in this universe. George is an atheist, as established by countless of his other work.
Thats what i love about this series. Despite the fantastical events and circumstances the characters are written to have genuine human behaviour!
It makes Jon's ability to act honorably and remain compassionate so often that much more impressive and poignant!
@@freedragon3050 I know right because he's one of the very few to do so. Most of the characters seem to act according to the worst in human nature.
@@freedragon3050 that’s why I hate reading people say that Ned was weak. His legacy echoes throughout Jon and the entire story. Every decision Jon makes is because of the man Ned was.
@@Ntwolf1220 exactly
To be fair, the reason the term 'Dark Ages' is not used as much anymore by academics is to move away from the stereotypical connotations that word now has for such a complicated and enigmatic period.
It's also to stop propagating the idea that the entire world just stopped (which GRRM specifically stated). When people say "ancient/classical/the dark ages/middle ages" it refers to a specific TIME period and most people are ignorant to the geographical differences.
Just cus life in the british isles, france and surrounding areas went to s*** doesn't mean it did everywhere else. The Roman Empire itself essentially continued in the East from Constantinople for 1,000 more years, and Chinese Empires, the Islamic Empires, and sub-Saharan African Empires was completely unaffected.
@@Red1Green2Blue3 well in europe it should known as dark year in western europe but then you people call that year of another term
@@davidjoelsson4929 dude, go back to school. That sentence was barely comprehensible.
George has probably studied it more than me but some advancements were made, they talk about it on the Wikipedia page. Also I wonder if George is over-egging the Roman period a bit, some advancements they made were lost but there were also lots of civil wars in Rome and lower classes also had less rights than the higher ups, not to mention non-citizens. And of course that's not to mention the areas outside the Roman Empire like Britain, upon which Westeros is based.
Also the term Dark Ages/Renaissance comes originally from I think Petrarch who made it seem like all advancement stopped after the Romans only to be restarted during the Renaissance when Greek and Roman writings were re-discovered. Modern historians reject this view, some regression happened after the Romans but there was gradual advancement then which continued into the period often called the Renaissance, no sudden rebirth of learning. I think that's main reason why Dark Ages aren't used so much anymore.
where are all the comments tf
I don’t know who this interviewer is but massive props to him. His questions are so thoughtful and interesting and he gives George plenty of space to answer them
Richard Fidler is the interviewer. Hosts/hosted a radio segment in Australia called 'Conversations'. Pretty sure they made released the episodes as a podcast, they're all really interesting. I used to find myself tuning in for people I knew and cared about and being delighted, but then there'd be an episode where he'd interview someone you didn't know or care about, and low and behold you'd discover that this new person is also really interesting.
As an aside, he's also the guitarist/comic foil in an Aussie punk comedy trio from the 90s called the Doug Anthony All Stars. The song 'Friends' is a good example. That he did both things never stops amazing me.
This was what hook me up on this story. It seemed that the people on it what just like us with all the myths, so having this "magic" that people dont think is real but it endeed up being real is really engaging
He's correct, we don't wanna offend King Arthur by calling his generation the dark age people or else we'll be hearing from him on twitter.
this is a joke
I don't think he is right. It's not about being politically correct, it's about being historically correct and in my experience historians are fed up explaining to people that people in the middle ages did not think the earth was flat or they burnt witches all through the middle ages (which is not to say it wasn't bad, but the middle ages is a long period). We live in a time where we want to be as precise as we can when it comes to facts.
@hardy16able
So few points here.
1. Dark ages isn't a reference for all of the middles ages.
Middle ages are split into 3 ages
Early middle (which is the dark age), HIgh middle & Late middle.
2. Just because they're fed up having to explain to people who lack an understanding of the terminology or how things worked doesn't mean definitions or preference of names need to change.
Doesn't happen in the field of science, the field of math, neither in the field of history.
The only time a term/concept is dropped is if it's disproven or been replace with something that has information that was lacking in the previous model.
3.Saying from personal experience means nothing. (No offence) because I can easily say that "I know certain historians why they do prefer to call it the dark ages" (which is true, but again personal experience means nothing)
4. Reason why the dark ages are dark is not that "bad stuff happens" or "people though the world were flat" during the early middle ages but because the age happens after the fall of Rome (who owned most of Europe).
A lot of knowledge, skills, proper structure of governments/groups have been lost because of the dedication to the empire which left everyone "in the dark."
Which spend hundreds or even thousands of years re-inventing or re-establishing stuff that used to be available.
If you want to learn some stuff about the empire, Europe knowledge & stuff that had to be recreated
1.Loss of knowledge/engineering of plumbing/transferring of freshwater & sewage. (Instead of tossing your stuff on the streets and building roads incline to travel downhill into the river or your own drinking water)
2. None bias collection of information.
They did not have the Library of Alexandria (or anything similar to it) which symbolized & was the collection of information of all religions & countries without bias.
The fact that nobody tried to replicate this & was forbidden due to the catholic church & any person of language/science seen it as a forbidden attempt to understanding others for their age.
3. Certain production/tools became restricted or vanished. Production of ceramic has decreased by a heavy amount and a lot of places that had wheel-thrown pottery as the years progress they were unable to replicate and replace the tools they had.
4. Loss of proper courts where the ruler wasn't the judge, jury, executioner.
The Empire slowly tried to spread its use of none bias logistics, lawsuits, province tax farming and political choices made by a council of people.
5.There was a form of Artisian guilds (Where new knowledge, tools, methods of production was being refined or invented) in Rome which did not survive. Trying to google it, the concept of this wasn't recreated or properly reintroduced to the world til the high middle ages.
Not even touching the fields of medicine, philosophy, certain schools/university structures that used to been established, a new location where knowledge transfer happen between countries/religions, and etc.
@@hardy16able Yeah, as much as I love GRRM, he is holding to an outdated view of European history that he likely learnt in his youth. The irony is, a lot of the stuff he mentioned as being terrible parts of the Dark Ages are features of latter Middle and Late Medieval times when political structures got centralised again and supreme rulers had more power. Having said that, his misapprehension makes for a really fun story!
Straw man.
They definitely didn’t burn as many witches as we think. But they did hang them and put heavy stones on their chest until they were crushed to death.
Fire is just much more dramatic for our collective memory.
7:10 As a history student, I have to pause here for a moment. This is not correct.
The Dark Ages is a term used by past historians to describe a period where there are very few historical sources compared to other periods. For instance, the Mycenaean collapse resulted in a loss of knowledge of the Mycenaean script, and thus literacy, which meant fewer records were written down in the period that came after. Hence we call that period the Dark Ages of Greek history. Around 800-750 BCE, the Greeks started to use the Phoenician alphabet, which meant literacy returned and with that came more historical sources. This means we can better "see" that period of history, so it is not "dark" like the period that came before.
The same is true for the Middle Ages. But lately, historians have moved away from describing it as the Dark Ages, both because it is not very precise (as it could also refer to the much earlier Greek period), but also because there are actually quite a lot of sources, even on the early Middle Ages. Sure, we don't know much about the period, and not nearly as much as Antiquity because of the lack of bureaucracy that recorded everything, but that doesn't make it that dark in terms of sources as, say, the Dark Ages of Greek history. Life during the Middle Ages also didn't differ much from life before or after. Compared to life today, life was tough and survival was difficult for the common folks. But the same was true for life during Antiquity or life during the Early Modern Period. It was far more of a continuum than GRRM suggests.
Interestingly, historians are not that fond of the term "Middle Ages" either for the same reason as they don't like the Dark Ages as a term. It's an invention from the Renaissance, referring to a perceived loss of knowledge and civilization during the Middle Ages compared to before and after it. The Renaissance was a movement where Antiquity was highlighted as some long-lost Golden Age of wonder, and the Middle Ages was the rough period in-between two better periods. Historians are aware of how misunderstood that viewpoint was, which is why they're generally not fond of the term "Middle Ages". But because of how ingrained the term is, there is no changing that now. But at least we can use that instead of the even worse "Dark Ages".
I'm honestly surprised and a bit disappointed that GRRM is not aware of this and perpetrates this myth about the Middle Ages and Antiquity as somehow being completely different.
Thanks for this great explanation on what I myself felt. As an amateur lover of history I found his comments pretty "old school" but didn't really know how to comment on it.
@@DenOndeMister Thank you for the kind words. It means my effort was not wasted :)
From what I understand there WAS a massive collapse of civilization though (in Europe at least) and a decrease in quality of life, art, culture, architectural knowledge, science, medicine, etc. When Rome collapsed the territories of the western Roman Empire basically regressed about 500 years in the areas mentioned above and stayed there (stagnated) for another 500-600 years.
They didn’t begin to dig themselves out of the hole until the renaissance. So yes, the “dark ages” were dark in pretty much every sense of the word.
@@wantanamera that was the view that was held until the 70s and which has resurfaced in the 2010s, with Historians like Ward-Perkins, who do bring up archaeological evidence of a decline in the usage of low-value coinage, decline in trade, huts being made of perishable material, roof tiles becoming a luxury while they were fairly common during the Roman Period, etc. All of this evidence is used to justify a decline.
That being said, however, this was not something that affected the entirety of Europe. People in Italy still built houses with roof tiles instead of using wood and thatch, in the Eastern Roman Empire the supposed decline wasn't felt until much later (and prosperity even rose for a time), and the Arabian Empire offered security to the people they had conquered, enough to facilitate trade, etc. And technology kept progressing! While we like to look at the Middle Ages and see a period of technological stagnation, this is most definitely not the case, not even for Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.
Regardless, a straightforward answer (there was a decline/there wasn't a decline) only serves to obfuscate a complex phenomenon. In my opinion, stating there was a collapse of civilization is... wrong. The Western Roman Empire certainly fell, and quality of life might have declined, but for most people life just went on. Society kept functioning, with others taking their place: the so-called "Barbarian Kingdoms" who settled Europe during and after Rome's collapse. They developed their own systems, organically, mixing the old Roman ways with their own. In fact, it was close to the end of the Early Middle Ages, with Charlemagne's Empire, that what historians call the Carolingian Renaissance began, a period where monetary trade started becoming the norm again, literacy rates went up, Roman values were emphasized, and more. It's not that civilization collapsed, it's that it transitioned into the Medieval Civilization.
Every time he says Lord of Light I can't help but think of the Roger Zelazny novel. Zelazny was a good friend of George's. Lord of Light is about a space faring crew who comes to a primitive world and uses their incredibly advanced technology to set themselves up as the Hindu pantheon.
A litte Hobbesian POV in there. Fascinating. I never thought of Martin ascribing to Hobbes' worldview.
"What do we say to the God of writing?"
GRRM :"Not today."
dude you should upload every time george updates his blog
Very interesting video 👍🏾
George is the type of guy you would want a conversation with
If you want to know how George really thinks, all you have to do is look at what Tyrion thinks. There is a great deal of skepticism when it comes to the veracity of gods.
Thanks very much! Do you have the link to the full interview?
I know it's been a minute - but this is undoubtedly a snippet from Conversations with Richard Fidler. You can find it on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) website, otherwise I believe there is a copy on RUclips. It's from 2013
Great interviewer, great questions
George Martin helped to flesh out the world and characters of Elden Ring, too. Fantastic game.
One of the things I always liked about the series was how even though (or maybe because) it was grounded in realism, the small magical bits were never explained and were portrayed as unnatural
@GREEN All of the stuff you listed only exists or is focused on for a tiny fraction of the show. It might have a different feel in the books, but the show always seemed like "Medieval Europe, with a little dash of the supernatural" until the army of white walkers finally became a truly present threat.
Interesting. This pretty much kills all likelihood of a literal reading of Moqorro's & Aeron's visions about Euron. At most, Euron might lure krakens to the surface in WoW, but they're likely to be more beastly than godly, and I'm guessing they'll return to the depths quickly thereafter
The "tall, twisted thing with 10 long arms and one black eye, sailing through a sea of blood" appeared in the same vision as a dragon with 3 heads, and dragons don't have multiple heads - the vision clearly wasn't meant to be taken literally. I don't think we'll actually see Euron in a demon form.
This guy is such a wonderful writer.
There may be an absence of justice in Westeros itself, but that lack is what draws the reader into deeper engagement with the story, as it appeals to our innate desire for justice and the hope that perhaps we’ll find it hiding behind the next turn of the page.
Isn't that most stories til the end? There is often something wrong that is solved
@@muscularclassrepresentativ5663 of course, but Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice & Fire/House of the Dragon plays it a bit more realistically in terms of actions and consequences than a lot of other fantasy genre authors. The truly good guys don’t last very long, so the protagonist focus shifts to the least evil person, or person whose evil is most aligned with a viewer’s values.
1:11
Weirwood Thanos: You couldn't live with your own failure. And where did that bring you? Back to me.
They were called 'the dark ages' because of the lack of surviving written records, not because they were worse than times before or after.
Wow this is 2021, thought it was years old for a moment XD
It's an old interview, but uploaded this year
I've not read the books yet. But from the show it seemed to me that the only god that seemed truly real was the lord of light. The resurrection of John etc seemed to confirm that.
I feel like R'ollor is more a of hands on of the Gods kind of like Greco/roman god while the seven is more a background of a God like Christianity
I get the feeling that the gods in asoiaf universe is similar to that of Warhammer fantasy and 40k gods in the sense that they can't physically come out of their dimension(the warp) but they can give a chosen character powers of theirs Horus lupercal for example.same in g.o.t bran is of the old gods and can channel their powers jaquen has the many face gods abilities obviously beric melisandre etc have the powers of rhollor and characters like patch face have been granted powers by the drowned god.
Have you heard of American Gods it has a similar concept. That Gods are created by human imagination. Once a group of people worship the God the God grows in Power. If the God loses followers it grows weaker. Once a God has no followers the God loses its powers and become mortal. A God without followers get amnesia and have to deal with problems of disease, injury, and age. It is a book and TV show.
Never got that impression.
I’ve always felt none of the gods are objectively real but magic is; and people can unconsciously channel it to perform ‘miracles.’
Well George RR Martin in a way IS the deity of GoT. He is it's creator and orchestrates all the horrible events that occur throughout.
A malevolent god😱
good stuff
Good interviewer
The 'Dark Ages' weren't called the 'Dark Ages' because it was a hard and cruel times, but because we had a lack of information about the period, thus being a 'dark period of our knowledge'. Nowadays, we have found a lot more information, and thus the name has been taken away.
That’s not what “dark age” originally meant at all. That’s backwards projection about the term. The origin of the term is related to the renaissance conception of history and meant exactly an age of tumult and uncivility. What you stated is a later way of viewing the term. Not necessarily wrong but the original really meant just what we would call “a dark time”
Well, from the books and series it seems to me that: death is final and there is no afterlife; magic and supernatural are absolutely real.
As for gods, it looks like that are supernatural entities, and R’hllor is a specially powerful one, but I don’t think they are gods.
What about about beric dondarrion?
@@starrchild254 what about him? He was brought back either by magic or by the power of R’hllor. We can’t be sure if R’hllor is a god, a spirit, if he is the voice that comes from the flames.
Ever notice how every time magic is used in the series, it requires some sort of human sacrifice? Whether it's just a little blood, a body part, a piece of your soul, something or someone is always sacrificed in order to create magic. I think magic in ASOIAF is made of blood and human spirit. The more you sacrifice, the stronger the magic. It doesn't matter what god you pray to, as long as you are willing to sacrifice. The comet, the physical embodiment of both ice and fire, is likely the catalyst that brought on the newest age of magic we are witnessing in the series
They aren't gods in the sense that they don't carry objective moral sovereignty over Planetos or that they're non-omniscient/omnipotent? It seems clear that something is being invoked and power traded in exchange for blood or life, Melisandre can see visions of future events, even if her interpretations are very limited in scope. So R'hllor or whatever answers to that name has the power to at least grant said visions, whether it's privy to the visions itself is entirely speculative; in that sense it has access indirectly to the sum totality of events or at least the bits people seem to care about, checking off the omniscient box. On the omnipotent front it's hard to quantify the extent of the powers because we crave pretty consistent things, renewed life, revenge, visions of events passed or yet to come, hearing direct voices in the case of Varys' sorcerer, but all these things seem easily within the scope of R'hllor's power. Whatever answers to that name clearly has a kind of divine force that can alter the rules of reality or at least open those doors otherwise entirely sealed to us mortals, in that sense they're very much gods in the classical formulation, pre-Platonic Christian ones that aren't objective in scope, total in their power and complete in their authority.
Magic is clearly real in the stories, but I don't think the gods are.
1:12 only just noticed how the tree's face is almost definitely based on the second actor used for the 3 eyed Raven. Looks just like him
dark ages he described with the classism.. still alive and well today.
GRRM always strikes me as a very level headed guy, considering the stuff he writes
This means you have a lot to learn about the humans that lived, live and will live.
Yeah
I would say it is his level headedness that allows him to write the stuff he does.
@@heuvelke1065 fuckin armchair RUclips psychologists lol
I like to think that the Gods in asoiaf are real and that they play their own game of thrones in their own ways with the prize being power and the way to get said power is to have the most followers. The old Gods of the North play a very passive game with some sort of long view, the 7 gods and the god of death (followed by the faceless men and people in in Kings landing) play a game of cults and religion, and r'hllor plas a very short sighted game of of having his followers kill the followers of the other Gods. There are of course more Gods, of which more game types can be seen based on how their followers behave, but I'm not going to be able to cover them all in a single comment.
I get that this will never be covered in the books. It's just my personal theory.
These videos would be awesome if it was about a finished story. I was once obsessed with the books, but it's been so long now I just can't care anymore.
That was the definition of an Evasive Answer.
Not necessarily. George is saying he wants the Gods in his story to be ambiguous, they are as real as the characters want them to be, just like the Gods in our world. Their perception shapes their reality.
I love listening to George talk about the research he did for the world building in his stories and then jumping to Benioff saying “DaNy KiNdA fOrGoT aBoUt ThE iRoN fLeEt”…
This interview is very interesting to listen to George's biases in how he views history. Tons of just plain incorrect assumptions about the dark age life and about how good it was in Roman rule.
I can listen to GRRM whole day.
Enjoy then the ultimate uncertainty of an unfinishable series. I am starting to agree with critiques that deconstruction for the sake of deconstruction is eventually self-defeating for motivating an author to actually finish a work.
Its interesting to speculate for sure, but I doubt he has a concrete pantheon in his head. Magic doesn't necessarily equal godly power.
This video's thumbnail made me realise that GRR Martin kinda looks like Cthulhu.
Expert answer
The Lord of light was the realest god and had the most proof
The many faces God has shown his power a few times also. I would say those 2 gods were the most prevalent.
I do have to disagree with George on the term "Dark Ages". It was changes not because of "political correctness" but because historians believe that it kinda hides and hinders when explaining that the middle ages weren't actually that devastatingly dark as George's world, as least not as constantly.
GoT is clearly set in the 1400s/1500s, just like the Wars of the Roses which it's based on. Those were not the Dark Ages. It was the early Rennaisance. The Dark Ages came after the fall of the Roman Empire, and ended when Europe began to become equal in wealth, technology and power to the Roman Empire.
Things really were that dark sometimes though, especially in times of war. From bandits like the Border Reivers who raped, robbed and murdered all along the Scottish-English border for 400 years, to soldiers of massive armies marching across the country, requisitioning whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. It wasn't uncommon for soldiers to steal a villages entire store of food, leaving the inhabitants of that village to die of starvation. There were also peasant revolts, which usual involved men wearing proper armor and armed with proper weapons slaughtering countless peasants who were only armed with farming implements.
@@Dushmann_ all those dark deeds of murder, rape and plunder have been done by the Romans aswell just like the Greeks, Persians and Assyrians before them. Compared to the 20th century you could consinder the classical and medieval era "times of light.".
I always thought that the term Dark Age referred to a lack of information about a specific place and period like the Mediterranean after the bronze age collapse.
@@theobastiaan5943 Dark Ages is mainly enlightenment BS about the middle ages, in many ways the people in the Middle Ages had a fuller life then we. Their life was stuffed with mean and less material wealth. We have all the material wealth in the world yet we are totalitarian and belief in a makebelief greentopia overseen by technocrat priest class.
@@theobastiaan5943 Not exactly. When the Roman empire collapsed and the legions were decimated, that was the end of civil order. The Roman legions were not only responsible for fighting wars, but also protecting the peace, administrating regions, and maintaining roads and other infrastructure. Once they were gone it was basically like if our entire government and all the construction workers and scientists were to suddenly disappear. Add to that the Muslims raiding from the south, the Vikings raiding from the North and the other eastern raiders and suddenly you go from having working sewer systems and running water to throw your crap into the streets and believing bathing is evil. Which is why the Feudal system was born.
@@morro190 I'm aware that the Roman Empire also spread the benefits of it's culture but that is after the killing, raping and enslaving. When villages refused to pay a part of their harvest or give up their sons for the legions is was murder and enslaving all over again. That's what the raiders in later times did aswell. Btw you don't throw your poop in the streets?
Does anyone know where I can listen to the full interview?
GRRM: First of all the story is not finished...
Fans: Yes, we are aware.
So your telling me there won’t be a Euron chapter where he rides Cthulhu into battle against Rhll’or and the Great Other in a royal rumble style match to decide who the rightful God of Westeros is?
Martin likes interviews.
💥🔥🐉🐲🐉🔥💥
Possibly a little too much.
People keep bugging him about stuff 😂👀
ugh i hate when the interviewer interrupt him and dont let him finish
So from this interview we can see that GRRM probably isn’t a fan of the Deus Ex Machina writing mechanic
Call me slow but I only now realized the doom of Valyria is basically a reference to the fall of Rome
Pompei, actually
dude you are slow.
What!? You asked!
@@edgelord616 Well both. The way Valyria fell was inspired by Pompei, but the overall implications and role in the world of Westeros are a direct parallel to the Western Roman Empire and its fall.
Bran showing back up towards the end of the story, with the memory of all people ever and the ability to take over any living body, then everyone instantly accepting him as king isn't like a God appearing on stage at all...
That book about telepathy, man taht sounds so interesting, I got chills just thinking about really knowing a person.
For a man who only managed to tell half a story he seems to have plenty of time to talk about it
Well it’s easier to talk about stuff that you wrote already than finishing. It’s there and established plus it’s been out for a long long time. How many books does he have left two?
Interesting! I always read the book as if "the gods" were just part of another "fundamental force", i.e. whatever "powers" character may be drawing from are just another scientific phenomenon like gravity that are then misinterpreted.
There's a mad theory I always liked.
Ever read Prey, by Michael Creighton? The book's about a scientist who gets roped into a secret project to test self-evolving nanoswarms.
Needless to say, the nanoswarms get loose, it's a dry run for Jurassic Park.
But how those things are described; shadowy impressions of a person, barely able to hold itself together... reminded _me_ of a Shadow-assassin.
Nanoswarms. Blood? Yes, in SciFi nanotech only works or doesn't work based on certain family line markers. Healing? Nanobots in fiction are primarily used for healing.
Healing gone wrong? HEY EVER HEAR OF ASSHAI-BY-THE-SHADOW?! Where everybody's sterile yet _immortal._ Asshai by the Medbay more like...
As for Valyria, I'm pretty sure that's what happens when the slaves manage to set off the warp core you've been mining for Starship Alloy (Valyrian Steel) The congenital deformities in Mantarys, just north of the Valyrian peninsula are pretty indicative of nuclear hell having taken Valyria of old. Also explains why nobody ever made it into (or rather back out of) the peninsula proper.
Why can Valyrian Steel only be reforged with blood? Because the nanotech _inside_ the plating deactivates when it detects user DNA. Valyrian steel also holds an edge. What good metamaterial _isn't_ self-repairing?
With the star-blade Dawn being forged from someone else's spaceprobe come crashing down to Planetos.
Redditor brain
Just like in real life, there is no guarantees that you will have a satisfying conclusion, some stories just stay incomplete
7:00 - It was not called _"Dark Age"_ because it was a grim time to be alive (which most likely is also quite exaggerated and too subjective from our modern point of view), but because we have less written information about this time than some periods (and places) of antiquity. Because most of the writing was done in monasteries, there was little documentation of life outside the clerical perspective. "Dark" refers to historical information, not to living circumstances.
You are incorrect. The phrase existed about 700 years before you did, and the most obvious hint at it was that nobody knew how to do amything anymore. Be it paint, write, or God forbid, research.
All my fellow Preston Jacobs fans can take a sigh of relief
The thing is, I have to believe the gods are real in that world.
Specifically the lord of light and the many faced gods.
Undeniable magic happens in the name of the lord of light with nothing but faith.
The faceless men have their own magic through the masks.
But in the end, there is only one true god, his name is death, and we know what to say to him
Not today
tomorrow