What fantasy book have you read that gave you the same 'feel' LotR?

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by cellurdur

No viewpoints are objective when judging a story.

In that case, do not speak for pther people liking/disliking other characters.

To claim there is no such thing as "good" or "bad" is not true.

Is there evidence to that in GOT+etc?

Characters like Roose, Ramsey, Gregor and Cersei are without bad.

Really?

And if you meant that they are without good, I disagree. Except for Ramsey. That guy is the only one that strikes me as pure evil.

The thing is, every character has his own good, his own ethical code. For some it is some abstract belief (eg: Ned). For others its what benefits their survival. Yet others don't even think in terms of what's good and what's not, but what is realistic and if it's worth doing it (eg: Baelish). This is the beauty of ASOIAF, that it allows for all these moral codes to coexist. You have Jack London's law of club and fang, but you also have Tolkien's gentler perspective, and many others besides.

He is just doing what the average person does. Loyal to his family and king.

Does the average person really do that? You may think so from a 21st century perspective, but to be honest, I think that Martin's idea of peasants caring about 1) their lives and 2) their crops/lands/livelihoods/etc is more realistic than peasants really caring who their lord is - so long as that lord treats them ok. In this sense, Martin is more realistic than Tolkien. As for the aristocracy, there are all kinds. Some that are loyal to their lords (that are present in both authors' works) and some that are loyal to themselves (ditto). The difference is that there are less of the latter in LOTR+others, and much more in GOT+others.

Martin tries to write "realistic" characters, but they are all so bad they become cartoon villains.

Personally, there are very few I would call absolute villains, and even fewer are cartoon villains.

Because of the whole perspective thing, you get to see the goodness in many initially bad characters, and even if they don't have so much of it, you get to see and understand their thoughts and feelings and their philosophy. If you see it through ther lens, maybe it's not that bad after all, or bad from an abstract objective "good" but not from the "good" of reality.

Anyway it's a matter of personal choice.

Agreed.