Too Many Characters: A Case Study (read: rant) of Game of Thrones' Failures

Ned Stark on the Iron Throne: contemplating the state of the
kingdom, or simply trying to remember who Victarion on is?

After slogging my way through roughly 5,000 pages of subplot after subplot, I can finally say I've finished A Song of Ice and Fire. The moments I enjoyed were few and far between, but I won't deny that there weren't any at all. However, by and large the series written by "The American Tolkien" has left me overwhelmingly disappointed.

There are many problems with the series: extraneous detail, like the lists of the houses and signs of every character in the battlefield and the seventy courses they ate at Joffrey's wedding; the amount of time it takes for anything to happen; and the seemingly pointless deaths of major, well-liked characters.  But ultimately, the problems with A Song of Ice and Fire can be attributed to one thing: too many characters.

Having a diverse perspective on major plot events is a good idea. Showing the point of view of the antagonists can sometimes make for entertaining dramatic irony, and it can also help develop interesting villains that are more than just steepled fingers and "muahahaha"s. But with 31 different points of view, there comes a point where I just don't remember who I'm reading about anymore.

Take the Ironmen, for example.  About half the time one of the Greyjoys took the spotlight, it took me a page or two to reach into the depths of my memory and figure out who exactly they were. Same thing for the Dornishmen. With that in mind, I'm not sure why Martin focuses on the Ironmen at all. I'm not sure what the purpose of the plot in Dorne was about in book four, other than to set up Quentyn's plot in book five... which really is only to set up one thing: the freeing of the dragons. I'm sure that could have been accomplished without the 2000-page build up. 

In book one, the Starks are the main protagonists, and even if some of them are unlikeable or frustrating (Ned Stark's idiotic adhesion to honor, even when it leads to his death, and Sansa's blind devotion to Joffrey, despite how clear it is that he is simply an utter jerk) the others are likeable enough. Namely Arya, Jon and maybe Bran (although his storyline is pretty boring). Yet by book four, the Starks have faded to the background. The characters that drew me in have disappeared. Talk about a bait and switch! 

Daenerys, meanwhile, is languishing in Slaver's Bay, accomplishing nothing while making enemies. I suppose it's supposed to be character development but I'm guessing it's simply because the situation in Westeros isn't quite terrible enough yet for her to come in and save the day and therefore win back the throne for the Targaryen name. 

Whenever I do finally become invested in a new set of characters or a particularly storyline, I'm whisked off to another part of the world, which I had quite honestly forgotten about. I think it'd be more entertaining to read one book that focuses on one group or area and then move to another group in a new book. Oh wait, he did do that with book four, and that was the worst one--but the reason for that is it introduced too many new characters, while the old characters focused on an unsuccessful and boring sidequest (Brienne). Sure, Jaime's response to Cersei's letter at the end of book four was absolutely fantastic, but then any satisfaction with that fell to the wayside in book five. Come on already, we've seen all our favorite characters die, we want to see the bad ones get their due.

As a reader, I'm unimpressed. The book fails to deliver the story I want to read, and it takes too long in doing so. In the end, fine, I'll give Martin his due: his painstaking (and often superflous) attention to detail give him room to explore and develop interesting characters. Too bad I can't remember any of their names.