ASOIAF: When did you first realize the subtle anti-war message of A Song of Ice and Fire

A Clash of Kings. Arya's story arc.

Before that there were hints but it was at that point that I realized, in the harrowing story of the nine-or-ten year old Arya, set adrift without guardians in a hellish, burning, atrocity-ridden Riverlands at war, that this was something a little deeper than much of the fantasy or even historical fiction that I had read up to that point.

Arya's arc in a Clash of Kings may be my number one favorite bit of writing in the whole series.

From the moment Yoren's party of criminals and orphans bound for the Wall enters the Riverlands, there's an oppressive sense of danger over everything. The tension is slowly ratcheted up over several chapters until it explodes in the violent confrontation  at the Holdfast at the God's Eye, where Yoren and most of his charges are killed by Ser Amory Lorch.

Arya escapes of course, but it's the beginning of long period in which she witnesses or experiences:

• the murder of her companion Lommy Greenhands, a wounded child
• the loss of the toddler Weasel in a dark forest full of wild wolves
• starvation--she is forced to eat insects and worms
• capture by the Mountain's band of men
• torture and murder at the Hands of the mountain
• severe beatings
• multiple gang-rapes
• the murder of a 3 year old toddler and his mother

After which she's installed to a brutal work regime in Harrenhal and subjected to many beatings--and she sees her fair share of horrors there, as well, to the point where her spunky, feisty personality is driven deep down and she becomes, in her own thoughts, in the vast spookiness of Harrenhal, a tiny and all but invisible Mouse.

This experience changes and twists Arya in many ways, as does the constant assumption and casting off of identity after identity as she strives to hide her true self from her empty.

And it finally culminates her escape by murdering a guard a Harrenhal. This time, in contrast to the constant water and baptism imagery that that surrounds Arya, she doesn't bother to clean the blood off her hands, reasoning that the 'rain would wash them clean.'

Gives me chills.

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While reading the book, it was hard not to think of the brutal tragic fate of refugees in World War II, and the Holocaust; and some of the brutal elements of the Vietnam War I've read about.

I think the anti-war message in A Song of Ice and Fire is abundantly clear, though it's a bit muddled in the show, perhaps, with it's more gratuitous nature.

Somewhere (on Quora!) someone(can't recall who) pointed out that GRRM's goal is not to desensitize readers to the horrors and everyday tragedy of war--but it's to RESENSITIZE readers. Because in our comfortable armchairs, entertained as we are by the gore and violence in literature or on the screen it's all to easy to forget that brutality and violence is still very much a part  of the world we live in. And we ought to pay more attention to that.

Note: GRRM has said that he would have fought in WWII, but it was Vietnam that he was opposed to as a youth. It probably wouldn't be fair to call him a pacifist. I would say there is a difference between a pacifist message and an anti-war message. Hope this is clear.

Written Mar 21