I love fantasy. I grew up reading fantasy. But, I wanted to put a somewhat different spin on it. The whole trope of absolute good versus absolute evil, which was wonderful in the hands of J.R. Tolkien, became cliche and rote in the hands of the many Tolkien imitators that followed.
George R. R. MartinI was a novelist first. But in the mid 80s, I did work in television for ten years. And yes, that was frequently the reaction to my scripts. People would say, you know, George, this is great. We love it, a terrific script, but it would cost five times our budget to shoot this.
George R. R. Martin