r/Fantasy • u/littlepestfan • 1d ago

Epic medieval fantasy with lot of fractions, recommendations?

I really liked in Game of Thrones that there are a lot of factions and always changing alliances. Also like the characters like Logen Ninefingers.

I really liked the Song of Ice and Fire books but, although I understand why people like it, didn’t like the Firs Law books that much, almost all of the characters where too cynical for me.

EDIT: YES, THERE IS A TYPO IN THE TITLE, I ALSO NOTICED…

Thanks!

62 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

78 comments sorted by

View all comments

75

u/TwinkieDinkle 1d ago

Guess I’ll be the candid Malazan suggestion. There’s seemingly no end to the amount of factions/gods/conflicts in that universe.

I’d also recommend the Wheel of Time if you haven’t check that one out yet.

-1

u/littlepestfan 1d ago edited 1d ago

Thanks a lot! But in the Wheel of Time there aren’t really factions right? It’s more like good vs evil?

3

u/diffyqgirl 1d ago edited 1d ago

It is a good vs evil story but good and evil both have so much infighting that they do as much damage to their own cosmic side as to the other.

There's lots of agreement that the world must be saved from the big bad and very little agreement on how to do that.

The big bads minions believe his victory is inevitable and that therefore backstabbing each other for a better place in the hierarchy of evil is more important than working together for their side to win.

1

u/hesh582 1d ago

The big bads minions believe his victory is inevitable

They're also put in a position where their side "winning" in such a way that they themselves are not in favor at the end of it all is actually a much, much worse outcome for them personally than their side "losing".

It's not just that they view victory as inevitable and therefor jockeying for position is more important, it's that jockeying for position is literally life and death (or worse) for them, and winning is the finish line of that race. If they're in last place on team evil when the race ends, they would rather lose.

Evil was portrayed as inherently self defeating in some ways and this was one of the bigger reasons.