We see more WTF visions in ACOK, theres more warging scenes, a few more magical creatures like the Shadow beings (which with Mirri we partly saw) and the Children. Martin hasn't really deviated from that level of magic, hes still basiclly kept it the same during the series. In the first book we see magical creatures, prophetic visions, the dead rising and warging. Because thats what the story has been about and thats whats been the cause of the vast bulk of the human drama. Its such a given that its not even a distinctive feature, (its just some franchises like Transformers are atrocious at it) but a general one, so I can only consider Ice and Fire as about the Game of Thrones. Hell, Eastenders is about conflict of the human heart, or Wallee, or any other kind of writing. The reason I use the term political drama is that it quite neatly defines what the series is about and drama is a much more universal term. Isn't that what ALL writing and film making is fundamentally about. The lack of clear rationale and order for magic is part of GRRM's particular use of magic.īut in the larger picture, both the magic and the politics are only important insofar as they affect human beings, human emotions, human choices - again, that's known from many interviews to be GRRM's main focus. Dany's ability to birth the dragons and be unburnt is meant to be mysterious the visions in the tower are meant to be mysterious, etc., etc.

like in a videogame or some other 'high fantasy' stuff). magic, and a magical atmosphere was core to the very genesis of the story.īut as I said, GRRM has said several times that he wants the magic to remain mysterious, so that you have a sense of wonder about it, not like it's some common thing (e.g. Note also that the genesis of the story, something that popped into GRRM's head almost fully formed, was the finding of the Direwolf pups, that was the first chapter he wrote of the whole thing - i.e. You don't like that, because you prefer the political drama, or perhaps you would prefer integrated magic to have more logic and rationale.

What's actually happened is that the importance of magic in the story has been building. It's true that GRRM could have handled Dany's story, Bran's story, Jon's story, Arya's story, Stannis/Mel's story, Brienne's story, etc., etc. To me it seems it's been an integral part of the stories from the beginning. I don't think the magic is window dressing or random at all.

Is game of thrones low fantasy