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Originally Posted by Culhwch  Yes, but has there ever been another series were the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys' were so easy to confuse, and so hard to pin down? |
Excellent point, and that very confusion is one of the things that makes this series such a standout. But it seems to me that the blurred distinction between the Good Guys and Bad Guys exists only amongst the people of Westeros. There's no indication that any human is considering siding with the Others, or that some of the Others are having trouble with their consciences about the invasion of the worlds of men (I suppose there is Coldhands, but he isn't an Other, he seems to be a wight who has somehow maintained a sense of self and escaped full enslavement to their will).
So taking the Bad Guys to be the Others, and the Good Guys to be whoever is fighting the Others, I'm pretty sure the Good Guys will prove victorious, otherwise the ending will not just be bittersweet but downright depressing. Although, as TG says, that victory will not be without considerable sacrifice, the extent of which remains unknown.
Boaz, I take your point about acorns not growing into cornstalks, but to me this means that when GRRM got to work on the first chapter, he wasn't expecting it to grow into a murder mystery, or a saga about a plucky East End lass finding love amongst the rubble of the Blitz. He knew he would be writing a multi-volume epic fantasy (although even he didn't know just
how multi-volume - it was originally supposed to be in three volumes).