Tragedy and George RR Martin

Scribblers have spilled lots of ink on why George RR Martin can’t finish his Song of Fire and Ice.  For technical reasons, he has too many viewpoint characters, one says..  For character reasons, he’s old and fat and lost his drive, another says.

I have my own theory.  I think he is fighting reality and losing.

Here’s a truth about the world we live in.

The good man always wins in the end.  If he hasn’t won, it’s not the end.

Stories reflect that truth.  Even tragedies have to.

So a good tragedy can be one of three types.

The  hero has a tragic flaw.  He fails in the end because he failed to be good.

It’s a deeply disguised happy ending, the bleakest sort of happy ending.  The hero in the ruins of all his hopes and dreams at last has a chance to find peace and wholeness of soul.

It’s a noble last stand and implicitly the good guy ‘wins’ in that we the reader are celebrating his heroic determination to go down fighting.   His memory, his example, live on.

But what Martin set out to write appears to be an anti-story.  The fundamental message appears to be, “no, there is no ultimate justice, the bad man can win just as well” which is false and makes it impossible to write a satisfying ending.  It may be possible to write an actual ending where a hero triumphs in the Song of Fire and Ice, but Martin isn’t the man to do it.