Why is GoT an example of "fantasy without magic"?

Winters can be attributed to being an alien planet with a far different orbit than Earth. The wall is basically a big glacier, we have those in real life (though the wall has been shaved and cut over centuries). Direwolves are a hyper intelligent animal.

Then again, LOTR hardly used magic either. It's mostly enchanted items. The wizard hardly ever uses spells, and the spells he does use are basically just light and heat.

The long winter with variable season length is easily explained by a planet that doesn't have a stable axis. The northern hemisphere points toward the sun for several revolutions until it's nudged by something, perhaps a moon in an eccentric orbit, or a gas giant. Then, the axis shifts, bringing on winter. Earth's seasons are only stable because our moon is relatively large and close compared to the size of the planet.

In the first book, magic was almost entirely left to the background. There was no big, magical quest to pursue, no magic users as main characters, no use of magic to cheat death. It was political intrigue and human failings that caused all of the conflict.

Sure, there were legends of old dragons, and White Walkers, but even those don't have to depend on "magic."

In later books, with the introduction of Melisandre, Beric Dondarrion, the Greens, Bran's increased abilities, and others, the magic has become more prominent. But in the first book, it definitely felt less "sword and sorcery" and more "War of the Roses."

plot

A 20th century detective story isn't scifi or high-tech just because the detective uses computers, guns, and cell phones. Those are just everyday tools. Take away the scientific gadgets, which would have been viewed as amazing 15 years ago, and the basic plot and conflict wouldn't change.

Take away the magic from LOTR, and you wouldn't have the same conflict. Take away the magic from GOT and you could still have the same conflict and basic plot(s) with only minor rewrites.

Does the technology or magic or aliens drive the story? Or is it merely background? A thriller with a love interest is not a romance . . .

amergina said:

So, I keep seeing Game of Thrones brought up as the quintessential example of a fantasy that has little to no magic.

If this is a fantasy without much magic... why isn't LoTR considered a fantasy without much magic?

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^Without the dragons? I disagree. They're a HUGE part of Dany's character development, as is her trippy visit to the House of the Undying. I mean, I guess you could rewrite that as a fever dream or a drug-induced thing, but the dragons--I don't think so. Personal opinion. DO NOT TAKE AWAY MY DRAGONS.

Theory: People love GoT who don't like LotR or other types of high fantasy. Because there's so much political/historical stuff? I guess? I love fantasy, so I don't know what they see in it that they don't see in the other stuff. But I have seen various attempts to re-label it as Not!Fantasy, or Not!Magic, based on people who don't like fantasy saying good things about it and wanting to distance themselves from the genre at the same time.

Rhoda Nightingale said:

Theory: People love GoT who don't like LotR or other types of high fantasy. Because there's so much political/historical stuff? I guess? I love fantasy, so I don't know what they see in it that they don't see in the other stuff. But I have seen various attempts to re-label it as Not!Fantasy, or Not!Magic, based on people who don't like fantasy saying good things about it and wanting to distance themselves from the genre at the same time.

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I've seen similar notions by people in real life, usually more focused around the HBO show than the books though. I don't know if I'd say it's because people don't want to be associated with liking fantasy (undoubtedly there are some people to whom this may apply).

Anyway, people might just prefer ASoIaF over LotR for the plot, writing, character voice, etc.; not for any attempt to distance from the genre...and I do love the political intrigue.

tko said:

Take away the magic from GOT and you could still have the same conflict and basic plot(s) with only minor rewrites.

Does the technology or magic or aliens drive the story? Or is it merely background? A thriller with a love interest is not a romance . . .

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For the first book, that's mostly true, with the exception of Dany's story which very much relies on dragons. (To those arguing that dragons aren't magic, just creatures that don't exist in our world - the circumstances of the dragons' hatching involved blood magic.)

However, the big overarching plotline of the series relies on magic. You can't tell the story Martin's telling without it. The storylines in King's Landings are mostly political, but in the north, the Iron Isles, and Essos, magic plays a big part in the story.

None of the political stuff matters if the Others get you, after all

Rhoda Nightingale said:

^Without the dragons? I disagree. They're a HUGE part of Dany's character development, as is her trippy visit to the House of the Undying. I mean, I guess you could rewrite that as a fever dream or a drug-induced thing, but the dragons--I don't think so. Personal opinion. DO NOT TAKE AWAY MY DRAGONS.

Theory: People love GoT who don't like LotR or other types of high fantasy. Because there's so much political/historical stuff? I guess? I love fantasy, so I don't know what they see in it that they don't see in the other stuff. But I have seen various attempts to re-label it as Not!Fantasy, or Not!Magic, based on people who don't like fantasy saying good things about it and wanting to distance themselves from the genre at the same time.

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I think people like this are genre snobs in general. They can't be caught reading it, or their faces will melt off.

I prefer GoT over stories with elves, fairies, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, etc. I liked LotR, and many D&D books, but feel like I'm digging the trend away from high concepts and cutesy/oversaturated beings we've seen a lot in the LotR films and in bad knock-offs.

I think its the "warts and all" approach to a middle ages setting that earns ASOIAF that status. Being honest, I just read The Black Company and was amazed to find it had the same level of politicking as ASOIAF, albeit experienced from the perspective of the grunts rather than the politicians.

CrastersBabies said:

I think people like this are genre snobs in general. They can't be caught reading it, or their faces will melt off.

I prefer GoT over stories with elves, fairies, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, etc. I liked LotR, and many D&D books, but feel like I'm digging the trend away from high concepts and cutesy/oversaturated beings we've seen a lot in the LotR films and in bad knock-offs.

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It's been sooooo long since I ran across a published fantasy novel that reads like a D and D campaign that I'm always baffled when I discover people who think such stories embody what fantasy is today (or for that matter, what it was back before D and D was even invented). Have they really not read anything in the genre more recent than the Shanarra, Drizzt or Dragonlance books?

Or maybe I'm missing a bunch of books that are still being published because I'm not remotely interested in them. I dunno.

Maybe because it's a slow burn thing -- barring the prologue, there's very little magic in the first book until the very end. There are myths/legends/rumours of dragons that existed in the past, but it's not until (IIRC) the final scene that the dragon eggs are anything other than a curiosity from a bygone age. It is very much presented as a world that used to have magical things but does not now.

The story is, at least in part, magic coming back to wreak havoc(Dragons, Others etc)

But the initial set up is -- no magic.

And first impressions count

Roxxsmom said:

It's been sooooo long since I ran across a published fantasy novel that reads like a D and D campaign that I'm always baffled when I discover people who think such stories embody what fantasy is today (or for that matter, what it was back before D and D was even invented). Have they really not read anything in the genre more recent than the Shanarra, Drizzt or Dragonlance books?

Or maybe I'm missing a bunch of books that are still being published because I'm not remotely interested in them. I dunno.

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No, it's been a long time. Thank God the Elfquest days are over. I hope....

I wouldn't say Ice&Fire is without magic. It is subdued and subtle, but not missing from the world. I don't normally like breaking stuff up into sub-genres but many would consider it Sword and Sorcery/ Low Fantasy over the LotR/D&D type High Fantasy.

(Spoilers for A Song of Fire and Ice below)

I'd like to think it's because of the focus of the story. The story is focused on the massive political battles and struggles for power. Yes magic is there in the form of face-changers and giants and dragons, but they're not the main focus. Even when dragons are involved, they're looked at as a political advantage, like when Daenerys trades the dragon for her army.

I think the focus of the story accounts a lot for what tags appear on a story. Even though magic appears, the story is known for it's political drama.

There's a rule I know everyone on these forums has heard before: write the story first, worry about the genre later. I feel like this discussion is a perfect example of that. The words you use to sell a novel are sometime biased towards the audience you're attracting.

Blinkk said:

I think the focus of the story accounts a lot for what tags appear on a story. Even though magic appears, the story is known for it's political drama.

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The words you use to sell a novel are sometime biased towards the audience you're attracting.

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Bingo. I can think of several films for instance that are in fact romances, but are marketed as say action adventure. Because while the romance is up front, the focus is on the action. And, ofc, they want the guys not to feel bad about saying they like a romance so they don't call it that. Expands the market.

For me, ASOIAF -- if you took out the dragons and replaced them with...I don't know...a butt load of ninjas with flamethrowers that no one else has, you wouldn't change the plot appreciably. Because thus far, the dragons (and the rest of the magic) aren't the focus, they are plot devices. If you took them out/replaced them with more mundane things you could probably still have a plot -- lots of people fight about who gets to be king

LOTR was focussed on a lot of magical things -- elves, dwarves, how the magical nature of Middle Earth is going west-over-sea. If you took those out, the book would collapse. The plot (and theme) depends upon magic. No magic ring, no plot.

amergina said:

So, I keep seeing Game of Thrones brought up as the quintessential example of a fantasy that has little to no magic.

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It has unnatural and supernatural elements. It has warlocks (Pyat Pree, anyone?). It has magical items. It has dragons. It has zombies and other, far more frightening creatures from beyond the Wall. Bran's storyline is very magical and mystical.

Not sure why anyone would say there's no magic.

The first novel of ASOIAF has very little if any overt magic. The dragons are just animals. The zombies etc. are either legendary or non-credible. The on-stage unambiguously magical elements only emerge later in the series.

By that time (many years after the first book originally appeared) people had already pegged the series as "fantasy without magic." The classification has clung to it even though it's obviously no longer true.

Mr Flibble said:

Bingo. I can think of several films for instance that are in fact romances, but are marketed as say action adventure. Because while the romance is up front, the focus is on the action. And, ofc, they want the guys not to feel bad about saying they like a romance so they don't call it that. Expands the market.

For me, ASOIAF -- if you took out the dragons and replaced them with...I don't know...a butt load of ninjas with flamethrowers that no one else has, you wouldn't change the plot appreciably. Because thus far, the dragons (and the rest of the magic) aren't the focus, they are plot devices. If you took them out/replaced them with more mundane things you could probably still have a plot -- lots of people fight about who gets to be king

LOTR was focussed on a lot of magical things -- elves, dwarves, how the magical nature of Middle Earth is going west-over-sea. If you took those out, the book would collapse. The plot (and theme) depends upon magic. No magic ring, no plot.

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You could replace the ring with something else and not change the plot too much. You could replace the ring with any WMD. Then Sauron is nothing but a horrible dictator. Dwarves are just another race, and have little part in LOTR anyway. Elves can be replaced with a group of highly accurate shooters who are good at making armor. Them leaving could be them being in a small country that is being overrun (and that's just a side plot that could be left out without affecting the main story much).

A WMD can be deactivated on site without trekking to a specific volcano where it was forged. Same with most things -- they can be destroyed normally. The Ring could not. It had to be under certain circs because magic. "I have this ballistic missile. It can only be destroyed by dunking it in Krakatoa" is as magical as LOTR. "I can just deactivate it by pressing this switch" is not. (ETA -- most WMDs do not invoke a great lust for power in their owner -- the have the WMD perhaps because they lust for power. But it does not use its power to invade their mind) In LOTR The plot (I have a ring that needs to be destroyed via magical means) cannot be solved rationally, that is, without magic. That's the crux. ASOIAF can. One king's army beats another. Boom. Done.

In many ways ASOIAF is the opposite of LOTR -- one deals with magic leaving the land, another deals with it returning....

I think it's interesting that the prologue is used as a hint about the magic of the setting, and then magic is a very minor element for the next couple books. I'm curious if George R.R. Martin did that deliberately to hook in a more traditional fantasy audience, since the prologue isn't really representative of the tone of the majority of the rest of the book.

Samsonet said:

I think the big reasons that GoT is described as a fantasy novel with no magic is because:

1. None of the important characters is labelled "wizard", and
2. The people who describe the books as such haven't actually read them.

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Or 3. The people who say this actually read them, but ignored what they didn't understand - the hints of magic and otherworldness, which are in GoT from the get-go if you're looking for them - and focused on their favorite bits, which were likely the blood and sex and royalty being jerks to each other and the populace at large.

I would suggest that genre readers, those of us whose antennae are alert for oddities, immediately picked up the strangeness of Martin's world (the years-long superseasons, the dragons, etc.) and deduced that this was a fantasy, albeit one without spells flying thick in the air. Non-genre readers either read those things as literary devices (or possibly in-world misconceptions - the same way educated people on Earth once debated the properties of phlogiston - or allegories, in that it only seemed that a summer lasted for years because it was a prosperous time for all) or simply ignored them because they didn't understand them, and it didn't seem to matter anyway because there's lots of juicy stuff besides that going on. We read in different ways, and notice different things.

Mr Flibble said:

A WMD can be deactivated on site without trekking to a specific volcano where it was forged. Same with most things -- they can be destroyed normally. The Ring could not. It had to be under certain circs because magic. "I have this ballistic missile. It can only be destroyed by dunking it in Krakatoa" is as magical as LOTR. "I can just deactivate it by pressing this switch" is not. (ETA -- most WMDs do not invoke a great lust for power in their owner -- the have the WMD perhaps because they lust for power. But it does not use its power to invade their mind) In LOTR The plot (I have a ring that needs to be destroyed via magical means) cannot be solved rationally, that is, without magic. That's the crux. ASOIAF can. One king's army beats another. Boom. Done.

In many ways ASOIAF is the opposite of LOTR -- one deals with magic leaving the land, another deals with it returning....

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Unless it was a high tech WMD that could only be deactivated by a very specific scientist who lives behind enemy lines.

EDIT. Kinda reaching. But so is replacing dragons with flame throwing ninjas.

Another big difference in the two is how the majority of the characters react to magic.

In GOT, the most learned people, maesters, teach that there is no magic. John Q. Fleabottom freaks out when he sees actual magic being performed. They disbelieve it even when they see it, like Davos in the cave with Mel.
Things aren't supposed to be that way.

In LOTR, magic is an accepted part of the comings and goings of Middle Earth. Galadriel gives Bilbo a star-in-a-jar and he is humbled by the gift, not doubtful that it is real. Sting detects orcs because it is of Elvish make and everyone thinks "Oh! Ok."

I guess that is why I have no problem with calling GOT a low magic setting. Even though magic keeps popping up, Martin goes through great pains to show the characters don't think it is normal or even real.
For the most part, the people of Westeros think they live in a low/no magic setting.
The people of Middle Earth don't.

Jacob_Wallace said:

EDIT. Kinda reaching. But so is replacing dragons with flame throwing ninjas.

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Touche!

But there's not much difference plot wise ( in some books anyway) between a dragon and a flamethrowing ninja. Background details may be similar

However,

only be deactivated by a very specific scientist who lives behind enemy lines

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still has a scientific idea behind it. It is explicitly explained.

Magic is that which cannot be explained (by our, or the book's, current technology). I'll grant they may serve the same purpose in the plot

This thread is the first instance I have heard of GoT being called a "fantasy without magic." Don't know how much my opinion or experience is worth. Probably not much.