I’ve said this before, George R.R. Martin is a good author, but there is something about his work that troubles me. I’ve finished book 1 of his saga, “A Game of Thrones” and my thoughts on that are elsewhere, but there is something more to add. For people who don’t have a grasp of the plot, it’s a fantasy story, and he creates characters – honorable and not so, evil and not so, good and not so, loving and lustful and the whole plethora of drunken soldiers that every novel seems to have. And yet, and I say this reluctantly because I obviously haven’t scratched the surface of the saga, his characters seem to highlight the weak rather than the good. You see, I’m not a big fan of stories where the bad guy wins. Even where the bad guy wins for motivations which the bad guy thinks are good, is barely digestible. And here, I can’t even draw the line. Are the Starks heroes? Is Tyrion Lannister a nice guy? Who will Jon Stark become? And what’s the stuff about dragons?

Those are rhetorical questions, but my fear is that when the answers do come, it won’t be easy on my brain.