Does anybody else get unreasonably annoyed at the vast majority of rpg games that are feudal societys on a surface level but are actually capitalist societys under a thin vineer. I was trying to play pillars of eternity but became incredibly annoyed at the frist quest of the game revolving around a mill which is in a lord's domain but is privately owned and operated and which the townsfolk sell their grain to in exchange for currency (to later buy back with the same currency). I had to put the game down right there.
I think a lot of the time it's an outgrowth from developers feeling the need to have a commonly circulated currency. Although the answer in my opinion isn't to faithfully recreate feudalism but to create a unique social formation for the conditions of the world, I've always loved the eberron campaign setting for that reason.
How could an oxymoron do this?
I don't know about that. Some of the best moments of the series involved characters struggling with the feudal webs and snarls formed in prior generations. Everything from the Baratheon Succession to the Red Wedding to the Daeneryus slave-coup to the Revolt at the Wall involved characters exploiting (or falling victim to) allegiances and dogmas they'd failed to grapple with prior. Most of Arya's arc involved traveling through the gritty underbelly of the feudal system and witnessing what keeps it rolling along. It's no coincidence that her foil is The Hound, a shameless flak for the predominant ruling family, who routinely pulls her aside and delivers hard truths.
Past that, I'd argue that modern day corporationism has far more in common with the feudal system than we like to give it credit. Especially as the volume of real capital consolidates under fewer and fewer hands, while smaller businesses become subservient to larger ones... the comparison between GoT and Modern Day Capitalism only gets tighter the farther away we move from Martins last book release.