Here's an excerpt:
But great HBO series are about more than plot and skin; they're about great themes, which Martin's story has aplenty. In the tradition of HBO's antiheroes and antiheroines—and unlike the protagonists of The Lord of the Rings—Martin's characters, even the best among them, are flawed, ambivalent and deeply fallible. He constantly forces you to question whether the "honorable" resolution to a conflict is the best in the long run. The saga is littered with fallen heroes and shattered myths, as well as apparent villains and rogues who make surprising turns.
And as in series like The Sopranos, Deadwood and The Wire, the story is filled with the mournful sense that the characters and their civilization have outlived their best days. A Game of Thrones is a fantasy, but most of the magic is in the past. We learn early on, for instance, that there were once dragons in Westeros (the continent where most of the action takes place), but they died off; there were magicians hundreds of years ago, but all that remains of them are some of the weapons they forged, and a vaguely described "Doom" that has thrown the world off-kilter. (Among the oddnesses in its fictional world: the seasons last for unpredictable spans of time, often years. As the series begins, the world is in its ninth year of summer.) Magic is not necessarily dead—there are rumors, for instance, of a ghastly threat stirring in the primeval woods beyond the borders of civilization—but it is mostly considered to be child's stories, or ancient history. It is a little like The Lord of the Rings, if you continued the story after the Elves and wizards left Middle Earth to the mundane and flawed rule of men.
Read the full piece here.
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