A Song of Ice & Fire (and GoT) is great midieval fiction but mediocre fantasy

I never read the Witcher novels, but does Sapkowski create an entire cosmology around his fantasy? Most good fantasy writers tie-down the ground rules of their supernatural elements by making them part of a cosmological platform that establishes the fantasy world. It's what Tolkien did for the Lord fo the Rings and The Hobbit, even though there are some glaring anomalies like Tom Bombadil and Ungoliant they both tie into the origin story of his legendarium.

I only read most of GRRM's first book and couldn't get into the fantasy elements for the same reasons you stated. There's no background to them and they only seem like window dressing.

I have to agree with this, GRRM fantasy is basically window dressing, even for low fantasy. I feel that his political intrigue is so well written that people over look this, or just let it slide. I haven't read the books, but if the fantasy parts is underdeveloped even in the books i think i'll stick with the tv series lol.

I have my issues with the books, and think the lack of editing and attention to the overall plot makes the last two all but unreadable. Any trace of the people of Westeros responding to the threat of a new Long Winter has been totally forgotten, and yes, that means a huge fantasy element has just sort of fallen off the radar.

So I'd say "His political/historical writing CAN be excellent" rather than "IS excellent". If he wrote a historical novel about some Plantagenet king I'd definitely read it, if he were writing history he'd have to stick to a plot after all.

Also you know what gives it away about the fantasy being underdeveloped? The fact no one actually discusses the fantasy elements. That's a dead give away.

Somebody said something i thought was funny, they said the creators took the term "Game of Thrones" too seriously.

I tend to agree. I like GOT either way but I always felt that it would have been best without the dragons and the zombies and so on. Especially when I first started watching it; I didn't really care about the dragons and dead people, I thought they were a distraction, especially since this show is only 10 episodes a year and full to bursting with characters that have to be squeezed into it (for this reason, the Red Wedding was actually a relief to me, because I thought, with fewer people, there would be room for more content).

I love history and I like the depiction of a medieval world. Some of the fantasy aspects are cool, but for me the feudal power struggles was always what I was most interested in, and the depictions of life and politics in a medieval world. Albeit mainly from the perspective of the nobility with little presence of the lower classes upon whom the nobility's existence depends, and how they feel about things; that's one of the main flaws in my opinion. But still, I like the history, even set in a fictional world. If anything it's even better when set in a fictional world comprised of fictional nations and people, because then you can create your own political dynamics and don't have to be too faithful to how history actually proceeded in the real world.

I've always felt that the show and books would have been better that way.

So apparently The Witcher tv show will premiere sometime in 2020 on Netflix. It's going to be their Game of Thrones. But i think it's more so a direct adaptation of the books, rather then the better known games.