This chapter examines Martin’s approach to the expositional imperatives of fantasy as contributing factors to his reputation for dark, morally ambiguous narratives. Employing what Farah Mendlesohn calls immersive fantasy, Martin builds his world out of analyses of evidence by characters and readers alike. The analysis hives away from moral certainties and creates a narrative focus on earthlier matters notably comparable to that of the sword and sorcery fantasists of the mid-twentieth century. This effect gains strength given that Martin applies it not to the sort of geographically confined literary spaces typical of sword and sorcery tales but rather to an expansive sward which typically results from portal-quest exposition, which tends to result in more morally engaged narratives. Martin then puts his rational, inquisitorial world-building to work by making the central plot thread of his tale a detective story in which an idealistic protagonist analyses the problems besetting Westeros.