ABSTRACT
Like the Tudor myth, fantasy literature is about good conquering evil, so it has protagonists and antagonists. Stated in different terms, the bulk of Shakespeare’s first tetralogy tells the story of the Wars of the Roses, but the end suggests the Tudor myth. As a sprawling, episodic, recurring story of one fall after another, there is no protagonist in Shakespeare’s first tetralogy. In terms of genre, where George R. R. Martin identified fantasy in the history of the Wars of the Roses, 400 years earlier Shakespeare and his co-authors identified tragedy. The best way to describe the structure of A Song of Ice and Fire is not as a series of falls, though the novels certainly retain elements of de casibus tragedy. The death and destruction of the Wars of the Roses suggested the genre of de casibus tragedy to Shakespeare, whereas the battle between good and evil in the Tudor myth suggested the genre of fantasy to Martin.
