Quote Originally Posted by hamlet View Post
I never found it to be cynicism so much as "extreme realism." When I first started reading, I felt that it was a little over the top, but then I sat back and thought "you know, it's not so much cynical as it is a realistic appraisal of how people would react in such a situation absent comfortable modern, western morals and the consequences thereof." Yeah, there are some contrivances, but this is fiction, and some of them need to exist in order for their to be continuity of story and character.
Perhaps, but the Seven Kingdoms do have an influential, active state religion in the Faith of the Seven, which seems firmly entrenched in all aspects of daily life and has moral tenets not that far from 'comfortable modern, western' morals.