Speculation - Contemporary criticism in AFFC?

[Thadlerian]

(SPOILERS) - of course.



What I'm thinking of is the sparrows, and how they're suddenly swarming Westeros. It makes me wonder if Martin is making a commentary on the real world of 2005. The mass emergence of dangerous fanatics, not unlike what we've seen in more than one religion of the Earth these latest years.

Three points:
1: The sudden emergence of these "sparrows". I don't know if I've ever seen them in aSoIaF in the earlier books, but now there seems to be thousands of them.

2: The arming of the fanatics (or, rather, repealing their weapons ban). Righteous monks running around with crossbows and longswords. I'd have The Mountain babysit my kids rather than encounter one of them

3: King's Landing turning, in effect, into a theocracy.

What I wonder is whether Martin intended the storyline this way from the beginning, or may it be a comment on the development of today's world?

[Raven]

Hmm. Well, the sparrows (I believe) were present in early drafts of the MS, so certainly they've been around in George's mind for two years at minimum. In practise, I'd imagine many more years: I know for a fact that he discussed the heraldry of the two armed orders with the people who run the Citadel four years back. (Though he's apparently changed the details of it since.)

Rather than being particularly contemporary political commentary, though, I'd see it as a thematic thing. Many of George's stories use religion or fanaticism as a theme. It's not like he just discovered this in recent times. And after all, something that has been commented on many times in previous years is the fact that, for a historically-based fantasy setting, the one thing which seemed almost absent was the third estate, religion.

The emergence of the sparrows and the re-arming and shift towards fundamentalism of the Faith is a perfectly natural, if unfortunate, outgrowth of the devastation of the Seven Kingdoms. War leads to fanaticism as surely as it does to death. The sparrows, after all, have nothing left to lose. And I'm sure that the choice of a bird name ('sparrows') was meant to thematically tie in with the 'crows' theme that runs through the book.

[Winters_Sorrow]

Originally Posted by Raven

The emergence of the sparrows and the re-arming and shift towards fundamentalism of the Faith is a perfectly natural, if unfortunate, outgrowth of the devastation of the Seven Kingdoms. War leads to fanaticism as surely as it does to death. The sparrows, after all, have nothing left to lose. And I'm sure that the choice of a bird name ('sparrows') was meant to thematically tie in with the 'crows' theme that runs through the book.

Yup, this is basically what I was going to say. When you have political upheaval or vacuum, then some people turn to their Faith to try and make sense out of it. The 'sparrows' aren't a new idea, even with GRRMs book though. He makes reference to the fact that the religious faiths once had militant orders and are using this opportunity to bring them back and try to gain some political muscle in the Seven Kingdoms. Cersei doesn't know what trouble she's created for herself. She thinks she can lose them upon her enemies like another army but, as far as they're concerned, they answer to a higher power.

I don't even think the emergence of this Fundamentalism has anything to do with the 'threat' from R'hllor's disciples which, thanks to Stannis, is obviously getting more worshippers in what was largely (the North excluded) a monotheistic religion. It will be interesting what their response will be to the Others....

[Florian the Fool]

I don't think the emergence of the sparrows is a reaction to any specific events in the real world. But I did wonder about Septon Wossname's (sorry, don't have my copy to hand) long speech about Broken Men. This was a very powerful moment for me, and I couldn't help but wonder if it was a response to the Invasion of Iraq. GRRM has made no secret of his political leanings, so he would have found that a very distressing event, I'm sure.