Cavalary: Now this is interesting,
an article about the French series that inspired Martin to write A Song of Ice and Fire.
Ouch, that hurt. People who complained about Star Wars prequels / Batfleck / whatnot, I understand you now.
It looks like there were three paths to geekdom in the 90s, one for the privileged, through videogames, one through bad translations of Tolkien, and one through historical novels. It really pains me to see Druon's novels released with Martin's tongue-in-cheek endorsement, and the article about Druon illustrated with screencaps from Game of Thrones.
there are strikingly similar casts - a feeble but sadistic prince (Louis in the French book, Joffrey in Martin's) a vengeful princess (Isabella, Cersei), and competing Machiavellian schemers (Robert of Artois, Littlefinger). With both writers, the reader navigates the complicated plot through the viewpoints of less powerful figures, caught up in the wake of events.
That's bullshit through and through.
For starters, Druon's Louis is an adult, the first in a line of stupid, weak-willed, self-absorbed kings; he isn't more feeble or sadistic than three of four subsequent kings. Druon's Isabella is a queen oppressed by her royal husband's greedy lover and his pimp father; a dutiful and chaste wife who gave birth to a bunch of legitimate children, driven to desperation and threatened with murder, she flees to France and comes back leading a revolt against the English king. Literally, the plot kicks off with another character exploiting her
prudishness.
Robert of Artois is THE hero (hur hur) of the series, so much that the series ends with his death, Druon writes an eulogy for him, and the final volume, written 17 years after the main sequence, is basically one guy recounting historical events with an occasional snarky comment.
Everyone's a schemer in the books, and one might even argue Robert is THE schemer, but he's also
THE everyone else - the warrior, the diplomat, the gallant knight, the boorish braggart, the chaste romantic lover, the sexy lover, the murderer, the adventurer, etc. And there's absolutely no mystery to his goals: he wants Artois, fullstop.
And while I understand that's true for Martin, too, most characters are powerful active participants in the events, but it's not even remotely remarkable either in epic historical novels or in fantasy - in fact, it's so unremarkable that people single out the instances where it
doesn't happen, perhaps citing The Hidden Fortress as possible inspiration. Only one character might be described as an innocent victim "caught up in the wake of events", and she stands out so much as a showcase "look what brutal middle ages do to pure innocent maidens" test dummy it's annoying.
TL;DR whoever wrote that article is an illiterate, ignorant, filler-content-generating web-2.0 asshole.
This picture illustrates my thoughts on the matter like nothing else.
