Simple. Because they don't preport to say anything about the actual audience. They're not concerned with how or good or bad, competent or clueless anyone is. It's irrelevant. It's not what the story is ever about. They're concerned with one character and perhaps his friends. The protagonist.
In contrast, stories like ASOIAF are always entirely about the audience. Whatever 'compliment' the narrative gives isn't to some vague notion of the hero that the reader might become if he makes the absolute most of himself. It's to the reader right now. As is. It's "You, the person reading this book, are 'pragmatic' and 'capable' for nodding along." Hence their popularity.
Y'know, one of my favorite books out there is Lev Grossman's The Magicians. I don't know if you've read it, but I get the feeling you wouldn't like it.
The protagonist is absolutely pathetic. He is very much your everyday man. His moral fiber is utterly unremarkable. That makes him uncomfortably relatable, but not in a likable way.
Which, in my opinion, makes the heroism going on about him and his eventual character growth all the more meaningful. Because it feels real (do remember, perception is everything) and like it could actually happen in the real world. More so than words on a page.
The only difference is which part the narrator points to and says "This is meaningful."
It should be meaningful. I find the opposite to be extremely dangerous.
Not getting people to care about death and destruction doesn't give you points as a storyteller. Quite the opposite.
Cynical?
Quite the opposite. Accepting the inevitable and necessity mundanities of life is paramount. It's an understanding that just about anything cool requires work, requires practice.
Let's take a look at this:
In the real world, war is decided by things like a nations GDP, the amount of trucks they have, their supply of fuel, how well they can ship grain to a certain area, how secure their supply of steel is for this asset. Decided on numbers in a ledger or a spreadsheet. Not because this politician is bent on 'backstabbing' this other politician for whatever moronic reason. Isn't that right?
Actually...
Quite a few wars have been heavily influenced, even decided, by backstabbing and assassination.
Your idea of what wins a war is actually... shall we say inaccurate? So the better equipped side always wins? The whole of human history suggests otherwise. Ask the picts. Ask the zulus. Ask Afghanistan, every time it has ever been invaded by anyone. Ask liberation movements in Africa and Latin America. Ask Vietnam. Ask half a million others.
I genuinely find it sad that you think real life is so boring and mundane. I have plenty of evidence to the contrary, both from my knowledge and personal experience.
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