George R.R. Martin talks politics in acceptance speech—”We’re marching in the wrong direction”

Last month, A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin took something of a tour of the British Isles, stopping by the World Science Fiction Convention, screening movies, and accepting accolades for his work. One of those accolades came in the form of the Burke Medal for “Outstanding Contribution to Discourse Through the Arts” from the College Historical Society at Trinity College, Dublin.

Martin writes about the experience on his Not a Blog. He also posted a link to an audio recording of his acceptance speech, plus the Q&A that follows. Martin takes the opportunity to sound off on topics — mainly political — that he might not get to voice elsewhere.

You can watch the full thing below, and then we’ll hit some of the highlights.

Anyone who pays attention to Martin’s comings and goings will learn before long that he leans pretty liberal, but I don’t think there are many instances where he’s this up front about his takes. He sounds off on a lot of stuff here, both the specific (“Obviously, I think it’s desperately necessary that we defeat Donald Trump in his reelection bid.”) and the general, warning against the xenophobia he sees sweeping through the world at the moment, and worrying that, like the characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, we’re “marching in the wrong direction.”

In the past, plenty of pundits have read A Song of Ice and Fire as a metaphor for climate change, with the White Walkers representing an existential threat that the rest of the humanity doesn’t take seriously until it’s too late. Martin doesn’t say this was a conscious decision on his part — he started work on the series before climate really became a major talking point in the political discourse, after all — but clearly it’s on his mind these days, and he acknowledges that there’s a parallel to be drawn. “We’re marching in the wrong direction, and if we keep marching in that direction, winter is coming.”

So far as he can help, Martin thinks it’d be a good idea if people got back to aiming for some kind of utopian ideal of the kind imagined by Gene Roddenberry in Star Trek — of late, the popular stories have tended to be bleaker, with A Song of Ice and Fire as Exhibit A. “I think we have to get back to the science fiction dream. We have to get back to the Federation, to the Union, to the United Planets.”

Martin talked about his work, as well. He didn’t explicitly touch on the controversial ending of Game of Thrones, where Daenerys Targaryen burns down the city of King’s Landing along with hundreds of civilians, but he did talk about his view of power, which might provide a clue or two as to where his story is going. “Power seems to me to be a very basic human need,” he said. “Sometimes people have vicious fights for power over the smallest little [thing].” He remembers people in his orbit having “terrible in-fights over who would get to be the chairman of the English department. You know, what real power does the chairman of the English department have? But it’s enough!”

At the same time, Martin isn’t writing ASOAIF to get across some kind of focus-tested message about human nature. He says there are a lot of “thoughts” in his books, but no uniting philosophy. “You don’t want simplistic message fiction, but you do want fiction that makes people think.”

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There’s a lot more in there: Martin talks about his friendship with Sibel Kekilli (Shae), ruminates on how the baby boomer generation lost its way, reiterates that he’s a fan of the “Great Man” model of history as opposed to the more systemic theories being put forward these days, and wonders why genre storytellers stopped writing about the nuclear apocalypse. “Now we like to write about the zombie apocalypse instead. I’m not sure what that symbolizes, but I think it symbolizes something.”

Feel free to give it a listen! And if it fires any thoughts, we can discuss them civilly in the comments below.”

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