Of a Jest and Dragons

The writing in A Dance with Dragons is good, by fantasy standards, but it doesn't stand up to Infinite Jest. But the characters in Infinite Jest don't match those in A Dance with Dragons.

This disparity is the result of the two books' different genres, at least in part. Genre fiction tends not to bother with stylistic flourish, and instead works on people's emotions with other people. Great works of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery are great works because they acknowledge some part of human nature that resonates with people in a timeless (or near enough) way to make them continually relevant.

The sort of literary fiction of which Infinite Jest is considered a part tends to do this far less. Great literary works are still great because they speak to something fairly timeless within a lot of people, but they tend to have pretty bland, generic characters.

Aside from its torrents of detail, Infinite Jest stands out because its characters are a little bit more interesting. Though they take on this special quality for negative reasons, rather than genre fiction's positive ones.

Now, all characters are flawed that's one of the essential elements of any good character. But in genre fiction, the characters that stand out are more often than not those that are good examples of traits. Tyrion, for example, is a complex character,  but he is a good example of an intelligent person, one who adapts to his situation while holding true to his bitter hatred of his father (and later of his brother and sister).

In literary fiction, however, characters are more often flawed so deeply that part of our interest in them is watching them crash and burn. Or simply watching someone as flawed as we are meander through their situation as well as they can. They're built for literary fiction's plots, which are more apt to meander themselves as allegiances shift and goals change.

There aren't many novels studied in English class that keep to a plot so steadfastly as a fantasy epic where the essential goal is to save the world.