Decoding the Orientalist Paradigm: A Critical Analysis of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire

In his book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin constructs a fantasyland of Westeros and Essos in which he employs a Eurocentric perspective through Orientalist tropes. This reveals a cultural, educational, and political dichotomy between his fictional Orient and Occident, depicting a more civilised and superior Westland and a more exotic and barbaric Eastland. Throughout the five books, Essos, which stands for Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, is always associated with barbaric and magical rituals, nakedness, slavery, savagery, and exotic and erotic elements, and is therefore depicted as a more dangerous landscape to live in. Westeros which represents Europe on the other hand, is portrayed as more civilised, educated, and chivalric, bestowed with every so-called superior European and Christian value. In this context, this study attempts to interrogate Edward Said’s post-colonial critique of Orientalism to elucidate the manifestations of the Eurocentric paradigm inherent in George R.R. Martin’s world-building techniques within his magnum opus, A Song of Ice and Fire, and to dissect the implications of the Orientalism within the broad spectrum of fantasy literature. To this end, through a close reading of the novels, this article will foreground the contrast between Westeros and Essos, highlighting the central position of Western societies and the otherisation of Eastern cultures by detailing the elements that perpetuate the superiority of the Occident and the inferiority of the Orient in Martin's fictional world.