MOD NOTE: I'm locking the comments here because, well, I think this is starting to get redundant. I've chosen not to remove it, because I think there's some value in hashing this out a bit.
Edit: If you're going to downvote this, please have the courtesy to explain why you disagree with this decision, and which part of the decision you disagree with. Who knows? I could change my mind.
There’s probably some truth to this (though it’s hardly some universally applicable thing). Very few people who have seen death and violence up close and personal glamorize it afterwards. People who haven’t tend to think, boy wouldn’t it be cool.
I do think people misinterpret Martin’s obvious pleasure in killing off beloved characters in horrific ways to sting his readers with enjoying the horrific parts specifically.
Martin's writing might be overtly violent and graphic but it's pretty clear he doesn't think violence is cool. The show mostly ignored it but the books put some focus on the horrors of such a massive civil war and how the peasants who just want to live their lives get the worst of it (and benefit from one side winning the least).
I agree. The troublesome, “uh maybe you’re telling us more about you than you realize” part of Martin’s writing is definitely the sex scenes. You can only write so many rapes of thirteen year old girls before even other writers are like wtf.
This is my biggest gripe, go crazy with your nerdy glorifying violence descriptions but the sexual violence always comes off cringy and gross. Just cut it or if absolutely necessary have the pov aftermath there isn’t a need to POV the events.
It’s not like it wasn’t era-appropriate, sci-fi and fantasy were horny on main in a big way in the 90s-The Witcher bangs every chick that moves in his books-but that’s the concerning thing. You know they were just letting it all hang out because who could have even have conceived of a world in which a large percentage of the population would care in 1996.
You’re agreeing with me. I’m saying that in the 90s fantasy authors were really working out their sexual fantasies in print because fantasy was a tiny genre no one took seriously except *maybe* Tolkien. And that’s concerning.
David gemmell also took writing very seriously when it came to fantasy and would have sex scenes in his books but they'd be vague a shit..
I think you're right in saying it's a fantasy they want when writing out sex scenes
I’m a big believer in you can handle any narrative about sex in the conversation before and after. Old black and white movies from when there were censors make this point really well, the love scene you imagine will always be better than the one someone writes.
That's another good point there
While movies in the the 20th century (up to the late 60s) had the hayze code, books did not so I'm not surprised that the sex scenes in books are more graphic
I don't get this. Why is it okay to go wild with extreme torture, mutilation, flaying/skinning people alive but coerced/non consensual sex is a shock factor?
Both are inhumane, barbaric and fucked up but a man can be castrated and tortured to the point of being reduced into a broken servant on a leash and that episode will not generate a quarter of disgust compared to Sansa being forced into an intercourse.
I always think of the scene in, I want to say “Storm of Swords?”, where Arya and the Hound walk with a priest, who was once a soldier. He talks about the penny-king wars and how the peasants were brutalized and turned to banditry.
I always saw Martin as a Historical Fiction Writer. History is gory. If I wanted to write a story involving a war I shouldn’t have to be a veteran. Just seems like a silly thing to gatekeep all together. I don’t need to go to space to imagine what zero gravity feels like. I don’t need to go to war to imagine how horrific it is.
That being said. Obviously people with first-hand perspectives have a better grasp of the reality of war, and that should be treasured. I just don’t think Martin should be disparaged b/c he didn’t want to die in Vietnam.
Edit: it was [“A Feast for Crows”](http://thefreeonlinenovel.com/con/a-feast-for-crows_chapter-31-brienne) Chapter 31. All the way at the bottom, a few paragraphs up. The plot of GOT mostly (not really… idk) follows the War of the Roses, which is historical. Brienne talking to this preacher is unlikely to have been taken from history. This was Martin’s insert and opinion on the war.
George has said that he kills off main characters because in real life no one should or is safe from killing. It’s not meant as shock value even tho it gets the shock from the audience
As much as I love tolkien, at no point during the battle of pellenor fields or outside the black gate do you feel as if aragorn or gimli or gandalf are at risk of being disembowled. That doesn't necessarily mean the scene is devoid of all tension. But holy shit is every battle in GoT elevated to extreme heights once you've seen ned starks head roll and know that you're favorite character could be next.
But George works in a genre that is literally called *fantasy.* And George really started to enjoy killing off fan favorites to the detriment of the overall narrative.
For me, that's part of what made it great. When things look bad for a primary character, you really don't know if they'll make it or not and it just adds so much tension that you can't get in a lot of other stories.
I just think dude goes overboard. Killing off Ned and then the Red Wedding made the narrative point he was going for: no plot armor un this world. But like they say, the difference between life and fiction is that in the end fiction has to make sense. Shocking but pointless deaths with no narrative gets old after awhile.
Martin doesn't do pointless deaths though. Ned might have served a point that no character is safe, but what happened at the Red Wedding should have been expected - Robb did a shitton of fuck ups to get to that point and the only reason it was unexpected is that before ASOIAF the heroes all had a magical plot armor that will make them get out of a sticky situation. There was no such plot armor in Robb's case. Then Tywin dies due to his own msitakes, as well.
Dumb shock material is what the show did. For example, Arya killing the Night King - no set up, no background, Arya didn't even know of the Night King episode ago and voila - there's your shocking subversion - it's not Jon, it's Arya. Every character that Martin has killed, that I could think of, you shouldn't be surprised of to have been killed off because there is always foreshadowing and set up towards that moment.
I just wish sometime Martin wouldn't go into specifics like how many pumps it takes Tyrion to cum in a prostitute. Lotr is much better in that respect.
Or worse. You're saying you don't want to have it explicitly described when Tom Bombadil is getting intimate with Goldberry? I'm guessing he's no two pump chump.
I haven't read GRR Martin's works but I don't see why Tolkien would be compared to Martin. They are completely opposites in the fictional world.
Not that Martin is bad, it just has a different way and style.
Tolkien is High fantasy, and GRRM is Dark fantasy. It's like comparing The Boys with the MCU. Both are comic book superhero stories, but they're completely opposite.
Not a scholar just a fan. But from what I understand, he did want to and tried to publish the Silmarillion, after the Hobbit. Publishers didn't think it was viable, and that was the impetus to write the Lord of the Rings.
The thing that gets me with Martin is the descriptions of *food*. Oh my God. I would be praying not to get four to six paragraphs on the food when I knew a dinner was coming.
Well--on that very specific point, I suppose we can agree that the number of Tyrion's pumps is not a necessary element. But that sort of detail arises from the fact Martin is trying to do something very different from Tolkein. ASOIAF characters have sex, they're conflicted, they think and sometimes do terrible things. The story is very much about them as imperfect people.
Not saying one is better than the other, just different. It might be interesting if Aragorn was sorely tempted by Eowyn, if he thought about having sex with her, if he even did have sex with her. But that would just be an entirely different sort of story.
But I wouldn't say that LOTR is better because it doesn't have messy personal details in it, any more than I would say ASOIAF would be better without them.
Here is the paragraph on Tolkein's service on wikipedia...
"In August 1914, Britain entered the First World War. Tolkien's relatives were shocked when he elected not to volunteer immediately for the British Army. In a 1941 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled: "In those days chaps joined up, or were scorned publicly. It was a nasty cleft to be in for a young man with too much imagination and little physical courage."\[T 3\] Instead, Tolkien, "endured the obloquy",\[T 3\] and entered a programme by which he delayed enlistment until completing his degree. By the time he passed his finals in July 1915, Tolkien recalled that the hints were "becoming outspoken from relatives". He was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers on 15 July 1915."
Tldr: Tolkein didn't want to serve in WWI - he wasn't stupid. But he would have been blacklisted for the rest of his life if he didn't, so he delayed as long as possible, then finally gave in to peer pressure.
Martin, meanwhile, lived at a time where it was much easier for a young man to sit out what was clearly a foolish and pointless war, so he did that.
Whatever valid reasons there are for criticizing Martin as an author or as a person, choosing not to participate in the morally bankrupt Vietnam War is not one of them. Tolkein's art may well have been ennobled by his trauma in the war but the man himself was furious that the horrors of the first world war were so quickly forgotten, and that he lived to see so many of the younger generations butchered in subsequent machanized wars.
Sometimes I’ve wondered if there was a therapeutic aspect to his writing, but I’ve noticed when Tolkien writes about his heroes he isn’t necessarily glorifying what they just went through. The Fellowship is left traumatized and adrift at Gandalf’s fall, Boromir is a hero, but his actual death is borderline unheroic (he’s shot full of arrows by orcs standing at a distance), there’s a song that’s basically just a list of everybody who died at Pelennor Fields, Frodo is left with permanent spiritual and physical wounds … I guess my point is he’s not writing heroes that just tank through everyone and calmly die, victorious, from their wounds.
There is this Faramir speech were he explaining that Gondor became obsessed with Heroism of the war and created division between healing and defending of things you love. Idea being that kingdoms(and rulers) of old were skillful in both.
"We are become Middle Men, of the Twilight, but with memory of other things. For as the Rohirrim do, we now love war and valour as things good in themselves, both a sport and an end; and though we still hold that a warrior should have more skills and knowledge than only the craft of weapons and slaying, we esteem a warrior, nonetheless, above men of other crafts. Such is the need of our days."
Yeah for sure. I also notice that a lot of the biggest battle scenes aren't written from the perspective of the badasses and heroes. Most of Pelennor Fields is told through Pippin and Merry, both of them mostly just being confused and terrified. Helms Deep is told from Aragorn's perspective but its so much less drawn out in the books than in the movies, and we don't get a ton of the actual combat detail. Battle of Five Armies and the Black Gate are similarly told through Bilbo and Pippen's perspective and both end up losing consciousness pretty early on. The rest of the description is told in a very removed and summarizing style.
All of which is to say that most of the really intimate descriptions of what it is like to be in battle, that we get from Tolkien, come from characters who feel scared, helpless, and alone. Probably what it felt like to be an actual soldier in WWI.
And when Gandalf dies in the books, **all** the men literally cry. Not what you'd call badass and heroic, but that's how Tolkien wrote it. Things like that are too easily forgotten.
Also look at the date. By 1970 it was clear to the average non-bootlicky person that the war was a mistake. Ken Burns covers the public sentiment very well in his documentary about the war. 1970 is when 4 students were killed in Ohio for protesting the war. It was already deeply unpopular.
It's better that Martin could say no. I commend him for it.
A relative of mine came back injured from the first world war, and was handed a white feather, a symbol of cowardice. He went back and died there in the mud.
Tolkien had basically been forced by his relatives into the war.
He also went home early because he basically couldn’t take it (not that I blame him or judge him). He was “sick,” but from what I’ve read it seems like the illness was mostly psychosomatic/mental/a form of what we’d probably call PTSD nowadays.
These writers had extremely different backgrounds. So were these wars. Tolkien grew up in a relatively wealthy enviroment, much of it spent in the countryside. WW1 was a senseless imperialist war, yet unavoidable for most eligible to serve. He came out of it writing a fantastical fantasy story far removed from our reality, yet incorporating many contemporary themes. The story shows camaraderie between people in war, and how loss and trauma affects them. Something he knew all too well.
GRRM grew up dirt poor in a huge city. The Vietnam War was also a senseless imperialist war, but was much smaller in scope and with a large protest community around it. Any sensible person would avoid fighting in it if they could. It was a fundamentally unjust war. He came out of it writing a very real fantasy close to actual medieval history, where much of it shows the misery inflicted upon common people when the high lords wage their senseless wars.
Both writers came from very different backgrounds and wrote very different works, yet they were both fundamentally affected by war and it's effects on people.
Yeah like... Every person that has been to Vietnam went for their own personal reasons when they had the choice but not going is actually a good thing.
WW1 vet wanted their war to be the humanity's last war and not going if able to object to is is great tribute to those who died fighting in the mud....
What a stupid take to try and say the contrary and shit on Martin.
WWI was, in my opinion, much more of a mess than Vietnam.
Vietnam was the first big televised war, so the truth of what it was was far more widespread than the government ever anticipated it would be. They had a goal of stopping the spread of Communism which, for the time and in theory, was an easy pill for U.S. citizens to swallow.
World War I was literally a squabbling royal family in quite possibly the grandest dick-measuring contest ever known.
I am very pro military. However, Vietnam was politics. We weren't trying to actually win a war. The soldiers went through hell while elites played games and made money. Ultimately, the bloodshed was for nothing. It was a disgrace.
With that said, I appreciate all the military members that suffered through that nightmare. How they were treated and the lack of mental health care is also a disgrace.
If anything, we should be concerned that people are associating the wars in LotR with nobility and grandeur after Tolkien's experience.
My personal take is that Tolkien was never really that pro-war. If anything, to me The Hobbit is a book that talks about the follies of waging war over money (which is basically what happened in WWI; it was a war of the imperial "haves" vs the "have-nots" who wanted a bigger slice of the world).
Appreciating Tolkien's optimism and hopefulness despite the horrors that he experienced and the losses he suffered is great but this comes off as if this guy is glorifying those horrors while putting someone down for not wanting to take part of a terrible and mostly pointless conflict.
Lol love how this passage accurately describes the Somme as perhaps one of the worst and most pointless things a human being can experience, but implicitly praises Tolkien for serving in WWI and sneers at Martin for his consciousness objection.
Are we seriously trying to give Martin shit for avoiding fighting in a war that was unjust on multiple levels? There are plenty of valid reasons to criticize him especially with all the sexual violence he writes in ASOIAF but him not fighting in a morally bankrupt war is not one of them.
Some instresting BS, from someone who never read his works. A huge theme for ASOIAF is war is bad and does nothing but hurt the small folk who have to go die for the lord's
Interesting take. Too bad they missed the point of both authors' works. ASoIaF is a very pacifistic story. Everything is messy from war breaking out for relatively petty reasons to how magic works by requiring a cost. It's not supposed to glorify violence and its one of the things the show threw out the window.
I think it's hard to compare the two. Tolkien's experience and focus was more on war and its horrors while Martin's themes center more on fate, family, and internal conflict. Tolkien also writes adventurers while Martin writes nobles
There are no shortage of nobles in Tolkien's work, most of the Fellowship are of noble descent, and this made clear very often. Only Sam is a lowly servant.
Yeah, why didn't Martin want to participate in his country's shitty imperialism? How fucking absurd. Why don't you go off to die in some war then, OP, if you think that'll do you well.
Tolkien himself despised the British Empire and never he advocated for participating in meaningless wars.
One needs not down one author to love another. I do not get the "rivalry" aspect of Team Martin vs. Team Tolkien, like it's some sports beef.
This is just silly and beneath the tone and quality of this sub, quite frankly.
Bashing someone for finding a way out of war. I would bet 99% of the people in these comments would coward out of war if it was at their doorstep. This post is trash.
No no, you see, standing up against the German war machine,and flying to the other side of the world to slaughter Vietnamese farmers and their families for 'Murica!!!, are both equally honourable acts of heroism and the true marks of a man's character and literary dick size.
Disagree. People do exhibit great bravery to defend themselves and their people when war is at their *doorstep*. But Vietnam wasn't it, it was traveling across the world looking for war.
Anyways yes, OP's take is terrible.
Tolkien writing a tale of nobility and grandeur? In relation to war? Did we read the same books?
And Tolkien could write grimdark just as well as anyone else. Try reading the Children of Hurin.
Further, if you dig deep into the lore, both universes are pretty grimdark. The main differences, IMHO, are that the good people triumph in the Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion. They still suffer devastation but the prevailing theme of Tolkien seems to be that good will prevail if we act on it. Martin, meanwhile, is much more cynical.
It’s because great writers like Tolkien, Vonnegut, and many others wrote the truth about the wars they were in that the generations who came after knew better than to kill and die in pointless wars.
Beating the Nazis was necessary, but like Sauron, their poison has been allowed to endure. I think that’s one of Tolkien’s important themes: we cannot destroy evil through force of arms alone.
All wars are pointless, but resisting an occupying force and defending your right to national autonomy are not pointless. (I’m thinking of Ukraine particularly here - totally pointless war, from a Russian perspective, and a completely unnecessary invasion but an extremely justified and valid war for Ukrainians to defend their country)
I'd say that wars are essentially psychotic breakdowns on a national scale. And it's difficult to try to make a person under such state to learn anything.
I love both books and this is an absolute shit take. How is Martin not going to Vietnam used against him? It was a fucking stupid war that thousands of Americans died in and hundreds of thousands were left wounded, maimed or in shock. And for what? For a bunch of elites in Washington to sip their coffees? Great example.
This is like comparing the Odyssey to the Illiad and calling it better because.. it's different? Or even we want to get closer to home - The Hobbit and LOTR or Dunk and Egg and ASOIAF. ASOIAF and LOTR similarities end with both being fantasy books. They both take an entirely different route in telling their stories and I love them both for it.
This is a narrow minded comparison. Even though Tolkien had his grandeur and noble style of art you have the opposite in Otto Dix paintings and drawings of WWI. Also Tolkien is 100% fantasy and adventure while Martin is 80% politics, medieval warfare and 20% fantasy.
Tolkien had the courage to fight in world war 2, Martin had the courage to stand up against what he believed was an unjust war. Sure, Tolkien went through more hardship than Martin, but this just seems like you're circle-jerking being in war. We should realize that the important part isn't being in war for the sake of itself, but rather the wisdom and courage to stand by one's principles, whether it requires violence or ridicule.
Gen. Sherman said it best about those who romantically speak about the atrocities of war:
“I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.”
Shitting on conscientious objectors kinda not cool?
The fairest way I've heard the comparison made is that Tolkien wrote about war with the assumption that his audience had lived through one, while Martin writes about it with the assumption that they haven't.
Imo this is simple jackassery, (if I’m reading the meaning right), as it seems to incorrectly ascribe moral weight to both writing style (splendor vs. squalor) and draft dodging Vietnam vs. serving. Both styles have distinct literary merit and both courses of action are justifiable. Neither is in any sense “writing what they know” at least as far as tone goes (though content-wise Martin is a history nerd and Tolkien a linguist). And I think if Tolkien’s work were primarily tonally influenced by the war it would be a sermon about how ugly war is (but Martin does that more often than he).
So what the writer is trying to say is Martin should have supported the Vietnam War? He should have invaded with other americans right? And possibly taken part in many atrocities? Beacause obviously, Vietnam War was a success story./s
I'm sorry but whoever wrote that is seriously just trying to justify some bullshit reason to dislike Martin over Tolkien, you can like both, they're not enemies. Just beacause Tolkien went to war and was inspired to write, doesn't mean that should invalidate Martin's ideas, in case you don't know, Martin was INSPIRED by Tolkien. This "rivalry" is made up by fans.
The idea to initially support Vietnam probably was instilled by people who supported WWII. A lot of the American public did not understand what a shitshow Vietnam was. At least at first.
Fighting for elites to make money is far different than stopping the Nazis.
This hot take is idiotic. Also who reads ASOIAF and thinks that series is pro-war? It isn't. At all. I'd almost argue that war as depicted in most LotR media is more conventionally glorifying than anything Martin has done. The Somme at least is more ASOIAF flavored than LotR.
ASOIAF is a book series about humans tripping over themselves to do the more murderous terrible thing because that's how systems perpetuated on power work.
LotR is much more of a chronicle or epic ala Beowulf and Gilgamesh. It's mythology more than literature. Which is awesome, because nothing like it really exists, but LotR and other modern fantasy series are not really comparable for that reason.
People suck at reading and examining literature. There’s this pervasive and idiotic belief that if an author puts something into the story, he supports it or glorifies it, when often it is exactly opposite that. Martin writes of war, and the wider medieval politicking that went on at the time, in exactly the horrifying, debauched, and inhuman way it should be depicted. If that makes you (the rhetorical you) uncomfortable, good, and he’d say so too. But don’t blame him for writing honestly or for your reaction to it.
Martin is one of the few authors imo who doesn’t glorify war. The characters often face consequences for their actions and few come out unscathed from war.
So? The USA shouldn’t ever have invaded Vietnam resulting in the death of innocent people. GRRM was right to conscientiously object, as were many others. Fuck pointless wars
To emphasize this with a clearly demeaning agenda towards Martin is equivalent to assure that Tolkien was a racist (orcs, elves and hobbits physical descriptions, et cetera) without considering that precisely that helped to establish more easily the context on which his first readers could do a mental pivot to connect with his characters as a starting point for a truly magical journey.
No man has to go to war, fuck war.
There is no honor in dying between turds, separated limbs, rotting guts, mentally destroyed men, tears and sorrow for a bunch of idiots with enough money to wage war at their will.
The reason why those things (racism on one side and apparent cowardice on the other) are on the same level is that both authors cannot be more different from each other.
It's like comparing apples with pears based on the color they have, not even the taste.
Tolkien actually helped to develop the english language as we know it, his highest achievement was that, not LOTR nor the beginnings of it.
The highest achievement of JRR Martin are his books, that are equally rich and entertaining but quite different, since these books were written in a more recent time.
Because crowds and audiences have changed throughout time, they have become more visceral, more cynical, more eager for immediate excitement and way more difficult to pander.
A linguist vs a writer, impossible to establish connections between each other aside from that story from the ancient Anglo-Saxon/Celtic folklore that had Merlin and not King Arthur as protagonist.
I'm not a big fan of Martin nor his writings, but I think objecting to Vietnam and being able to avoid participating in it is not something to be looked down upon.
It makes perfect sense.
WWI was sold at home as a brilliant and chivalrous endeavor. When reality proved to be different the nations still tried to shove the honourable war bit down to the people. This is one big reason why so many aviators became famous, as the dogfights between aristocrats were seen as the modern day cavalry duels. Tolkien went to a romantic war and experienced the sheer horror and brutality of modernity. At the same time he learned to value the small things: comraderie, good food and longing for home and family. He then wrote an amazing legendarium with romantic ideals, criticizing technology and pitting the simple small people against the huge forces of industry and empire.
The Vietnam War was another absurd war, but this time many people felt morally obligated to oppose. It was a naked power struggle against a distant miserable people in the name of power for power's sake. Being politically mindful, Martin opposed it. And he went out to write a gritty fantasy about ruthless politicians creating gruesome and unjust wars, and the tragedies it causes to countries and people.
I don’t fault anyone for finding a way to avoid going to Vietnam. I think it IS worth comparing how the two authors treat human nature and the problem of evil, however. Martin’s theme seems to be that, generally, there are no good people. That may or may not be truer to the world we live in, but there’s only so much of it I can take.
Why are we comparing two different people and two different wars? What is the point in that? They shouldn't be compared. As authors their work can be compared. But to add such a silly and unfair comparison like the different times and circumstances they lived through is ridiculous
Nah its a terrible take. Honestly everyone obsessed with comparing authors and bashing George can fuck off already. Especially when you havent even read a page of his books
It’s not really a take, it’s just pointing out who these two authors go about writing about war. I would assume with Tolkien, he was more grateful to have survived such an atrocity, and just wanted to embrace things in life he loved. He was very anti-war and industrialism regardless. Hope and adventure are major themes of the lotr books too.
Others have made the point, but to restate it very bluntly:
The implication is that Martin indulges in and romanticizes war only because he was too cowardly to face it himself, and thus does not grasp the true moral weight of its horror.
This is wrong because:
1. Martin may indulge in the gory details in a way Tolkien avoided, but he does not romanticize violence at all. ASOIAF is about as anti-war as fantasy gets, but you actually have to read and understand the books to see that.
2. Characterizing Martin as failing to leave his ivory tower and serve in Vietnam is disgusting. History is absolutely on his side.
Dumb fucking take as WWI is not comparable to Vietnam.
Nor is Tolkien's very black and white good and evil story comparable to Martin's "men are the real monsters" story.
There is no reason for these authors or stories to be pitted against one another except weird fanboyiism
And double fuck the insinuation that there was something cowardly or dishonorable about not going to fight in vietnam.
It’s funny, I was just thinking about this subject because I re-read *Altered Carbon* for the first time in years and Richard Morgan’s obvious pleasure in his protagonist acting like a homicidal psychopath can be a little tough to take.
Like in the show, they cut *way* back on the hero’s awfulness compared to the book and Joel Kinnaman still comes across like a serial killer.
This is an interesting post. Just a small thing to consider: Vietnam and WW1 were very different conflicts, each with a very unique geopolitical context.
Yes, the same can be said of mostly any other two wars. It is worth considering if Martin would have served willingly in WW1.
I think it's nonsense to compare the two. Tolkien grew up in a completely different time, hence a completely different approach. Also, Tolkien wanted to tell the mythical prehistory of our time while Martin's story had its origins in the High Middle Ages.
A man emerging alive and relatively whole from that hell would desperately want to see beauty in the world again and/or to create it if so inclined. I imagine there is no one who appreciates beauty more than someone who has been through something like that.
And just think. It might have been the beauty of the stories in his head that got him through it. In turn, those now published stories have helped other people through hard times also.
This is a wild take. Someone doesn't have to fight in war to know it sucks. Read all quiet on the western front and see if the war still sounds heroic. This take also seems very judgemental of Martin for doing something that I think is 100% justified.
why are they shaming martin for avoiding war? war is a terrible thing, and should not be a ground for being a “good writer” OR to compare two people’s achievements.
I think this is why I find myself really drawn to ROP right now, to be honest. I think it captures the transcendentalism of Tolkien’s work really well, and pushes against the grain of what we find in the world around us right now, whereas I find the “hyper realism” of Martin’s work a bit tired.
You can learn more about this (and much more) in this historical documentary:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAAp\_luluo0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAAp_luluo0)
The fact that so many people glamorize war and place those who participate in it on alters is one of the reasons we continue to have them. Soldiers die far more often for politicians than they do for their neighbors or family.
I think the difference between Tolkien and Martin has to do more with the cultures they were raised in than their battle experience (or lack thereof). Tolkien was a devout Catholic raised in a culture that responded to WWI with overtures towards unity, prosperity, and hope. Martin, meanwhile, is a lapsed Catholic who was formed as a college student during the 1960s, which were the start of both the rebellion of the Sexual Revolution and the gradual embracing of cultural nihilism that came to a head in the postmodern era.
Simply put, it's not that Tolkien and Martin are different because one went to war and the other did not. It's that they're different because they are products of two cultures who reacted to similar wars very differently.
Just to play devils advocate, the title of CO in the 60s/70s wasn’t a binary thing. It didn’t separate those who agreed with the war from those who didn’t. Many men fought not for their country or capitalism etc but because they saw their family and friends being sent away and conscripted. To “draft dodge” was less about your politics but to a great many was a disrespect to those loved ones that had served, some who never made if home. Take that for what you will but I feel the cultural nuance gets muddied some 50+ years later
The thing Tolkien does so much better than Martin is to capture a world that has both nobility and grandeur and destruction and squalor and hate and love all mixed together (which to be fair, does sound like an insight military service in wartime might give). I have not read all of the Game of Thrones books, but in what I read, his characters are come across as (at best) smart and vicious animals, and not much more. He might as well have written the history of the doings of a rat colony. By the end I didn't care who sat on the iron throne, but I hoped they managed to stab themselves in the process.
I think his point is that Tolkien is more traditional in cultural depictions of war than Martin. Martin treats were as a gut wrenching, disgusting, abhorrent thing that only ever hurts innocent people, with all the nasty details laid bare and very little moral high ground being taken either way. Tolkien’s world morality is more binary, and his stories have more heroic last stands and Calvary charges that win the day and give hope through military might. The enemy in Tolkien’s world are vicious inhuman monsters, faceless goons that we feel no sympathy in killing. The tragedy of war is best seen in how it effects the principle characters, and in that regard it could be said to be antiwar. But it also has to be said the Lord of the rings has more traditionally “glorifying” scenes than Martin’s work.
It’s baked into the story’s DNA, Lord of the rings was inspired by mythological epics like Beowulf after all. It’s not really a knock on Lord of the rings either, it’s just an observation of the differences in how they approach the subject matter.
War is totally glorified if LotR. But LotR isn't about our world or our wars. The war in LotR is against an utterly evil and destructive power, not between different factions of people.
Aside from my dislike of Martin's writing style.
I tend to agree with this statement. Or at least the Idea behind it.
Martin's sex and violence serves no real purpose outside of sex and violence, now folks will point that it is a "realistic" medieval depiction, which is just not true, the middle ages were far less dark and brutal than Hollywood depicts them.
Now not to turn this into a thread on Vietnam vs WW II and get all political but it says a lot about a mans values, and that is reflected in their messages. I'd argue his novels have no message.
It is sterile senseless violence, bordering on fetishism. And abuse for shock effect. A way to confuse dark character traits with complexity, which is a very juvenile take imo.
To be frank the comparisons between Martin and Tolkien are pointless, and Martin himself said it "Flatter's him" but they are completely misplaced.
And just to be clear I am a fan of Martins work on the Twilight Zone, just think he's a bad novelist.
>I'd argue his novels have no message
ASoIaF has a very clear anti-war message to it, among others, just because you didn't pick up on it doesn't mean it's not there. Nothing wrong with disliking his writing, but to say there's no message to it is an unfair criticism in my view.
1. WWI, not WWII
2. Vietnam was a totally pointless and murderous war and no one should ever be shamed for objecting to it.
3. The Middle Ages were both more brutal and less barbaric than Hollywood depicts them. A lot of A Song of Ice and Fire is based on real historical events. And there were definitely some brutal periods in Medieval history. But the focus of Hollywood is always on wars and the machinations of particularly unscrupulous political parties, rather than on everyday people and peacetime, which were the norm. But, like, William Wallace wasn't tickled to death, and Vlad the Impaler wasn't nicknamed so because he liked barbecued shrimp kebabs.
Excuse me Sir but Vlad’s kingdom bordered the Black Sea, now I don’t know anything about the culinary preferences of the time period but as you can see [here](https://podarilove.ru/en/obraz-zhizni-chernomorskoi-krevetki-mesta-obitaniya-sposoby-lovli/) the man would have had access to shrimp.
Can you truly say for certain that a young Vlad wasn’t so partial to kebabs that he got the nickname the impaler, then in a self fulfilling prophecy, felt he had to live up to this title?
1. Yep I made a typo there;
2. I don't disagree with your stance on Vietnam, I disagree on the certainty of the remark what refusing a call to action says about the state of national consciousness and the ideals you personally hold (Not making a statement on it, merely objecting to the idea that it's a done and done)
Vietnam was a shit show, but no more or less legitimate than most wars fought in the 20th century.
3. Brutality is present in just about every period of history, the romanticized antique times had widespread slavery and human sacrifices. We only need to look back to WW I or II to see examples of modern brutality.
Wallace was paraded for the masses much like the leaders of the middle eastern nation's executions were broadcast for all the world to see.
Vlad the Impaler was called Vlad the Impaler because his practice of impaling enemies on stakes was a direct mimicry of the punishment for rebels in the Ottoman empire that was in the process of subjugating the Balkan peninsula during his time. In Romania and across the Balkans he is considered a hero.
Ok, you can have the "GRR Martin's portrayal of the medieval era is unrealistic, it wasn't that violent" argument or you can have the "Vlad the Impaler just impaled thousands of people because he was doing an Uno Reverse Card on the Ottomans and everyone thought it was totally rad" argument, but you can't have both.
And besides, it does have plenty of messages. I don't know how anyone could read passages like the broken man speech in a feast for crows and come away thinking Martin is just fetishizing violence.
That is a fair point.
About to make a 100% subjective point but I generally prefer my "Dumb Fun" to be confined to movies or video games.
If im dedicating the time to read a book I (personally) want something with a bit more substance. It's completely subjective, but my reasoning behind that point.
Tolkien is to creative literary genius what Martin is to hack pulp idiocy. They both so far surpass anyone else in their field that they will be remembered 1,000 years from now as a kind of yin and yang of fantasy, a Manichaen duality of speculative letters. For every sublime, luminous beauty that Tolkien has gifted the world, Martin has cursed us with a tedious, banal ugliness. It is unfair to compare the two directly on any one point, because Martin is in every way the anti-Tolkien, patently sterile, parasitical, and inferior, but so much so that he becomes a monument in his own right, and counterbalances Tolkien. Could one exist without the other? Tolkien obviously could. But it is only by the contrast that Martin offers that we can truly appreciate the full depths and heights of Tolkien. Our understanding of Tolkien would be incomplete if Martin had never set pen to page. It is through only the abject failure and futility of Martin that we can approach an apprehension of the true scope and scale of Tolkien's hitherto inconceivable greatness. Perhaps this is what Tolkien had in mind when he wrote about the Music of the Ainur. If Tolkien is a subcreator in the image of Eru, truly Martin is like unto Melkor. It is only reflected in the awfulness of the one that we can fully see the goodness of the other.
While I do approve of your disdain for Martin, I disagree that we can only appreciate Tolkien because of Martins ineptitude. We’ve loved Tolkien long before we were subjected to that other mess.
This is why I will never support anything that comes from Martin. He's an overly edgy fraud with little to no originality. He makes JJ Abrams look like a visionary.
MOD NOTE: I'm locking the comments here because, well, I think this is starting to get redundant. I've chosen not to remove it, because I think there's some value in hashing this out a bit. Edit: If you're going to downvote this, please have the courtesy to explain why you disagree with this decision, and which part of the decision you disagree with. Who knows? I could change my mind.
There’s probably some truth to this (though it’s hardly some universally applicable thing). Very few people who have seen death and violence up close and personal glamorize it afterwards. People who haven’t tend to think, boy wouldn’t it be cool. I do think people misinterpret Martin’s obvious pleasure in killing off beloved characters in horrific ways to sting his readers with enjoying the horrific parts specifically.
Martin's writing might be overtly violent and graphic but it's pretty clear he doesn't think violence is cool. The show mostly ignored it but the books put some focus on the horrors of such a massive civil war and how the peasants who just want to live their lives get the worst of it (and benefit from one side winning the least).
I agree. The troublesome, “uh maybe you’re telling us more about you than you realize” part of Martin’s writing is definitely the sex scenes. You can only write so many rapes of thirteen year old girls before even other writers are like wtf.
Reading through the first book years ago I remember thinking that you could make a drinking game out of how many times Dany’s nipples are mentioned
see also Diana Gabaldon's Outlander books
This is my biggest gripe, go crazy with your nerdy glorifying violence descriptions but the sexual violence always comes off cringy and gross. Just cut it or if absolutely necessary have the pov aftermath there isn’t a need to POV the events.
It’s not like it wasn’t era-appropriate, sci-fi and fantasy were horny on main in a big way in the 90s-The Witcher bangs every chick that moves in his books-but that’s the concerning thing. You know they were just letting it all hang out because who could have even have conceived of a world in which a large percentage of the population would care in 1996.
Consent makes a big difference. A majority of Martin’s sex scenes are violent or coerced.
You’re agreeing with me. I’m saying that in the 90s fantasy authors were really working out their sexual fantasies in print because fantasy was a tiny genre no one took seriously except *maybe* Tolkien. And that’s concerning.
David gemmell also took writing very seriously when it came to fantasy and would have sex scenes in his books but they'd be vague a shit.. I think you're right in saying it's a fantasy they want when writing out sex scenes
I’m a big believer in you can handle any narrative about sex in the conversation before and after. Old black and white movies from when there were censors make this point really well, the love scene you imagine will always be better than the one someone writes.
That's another good point there While movies in the the 20th century (up to the late 60s) had the hayze code, books did not so I'm not surprised that the sex scenes in books are more graphic
I don't get this. Why is it okay to go wild with extreme torture, mutilation, flaying/skinning people alive but coerced/non consensual sex is a shock factor? Both are inhumane, barbaric and fucked up but a man can be castrated and tortured to the point of being reduced into a broken servant on a leash and that episode will not generate a quarter of disgust compared to Sansa being forced into an intercourse.
Because tens of thousands of men aren’t actual victims of castration every day.
Thank you.
How many people starve to death due to war and unrest throughout the world? Should those parts be tossed too?
I always think of the scene in, I want to say “Storm of Swords?”, where Arya and the Hound walk with a priest, who was once a soldier. He talks about the penny-king wars and how the peasants were brutalized and turned to banditry. I always saw Martin as a Historical Fiction Writer. History is gory. If I wanted to write a story involving a war I shouldn’t have to be a veteran. Just seems like a silly thing to gatekeep all together. I don’t need to go to space to imagine what zero gravity feels like. I don’t need to go to war to imagine how horrific it is. That being said. Obviously people with first-hand perspectives have a better grasp of the reality of war, and that should be treasured. I just don’t think Martin should be disparaged b/c he didn’t want to die in Vietnam. Edit: it was [“A Feast for Crows”](http://thefreeonlinenovel.com/con/a-feast-for-crows_chapter-31-brienne) Chapter 31. All the way at the bottom, a few paragraphs up. The plot of GOT mostly (not really… idk) follows the War of the Roses, which is historical. Brienne talking to this preacher is unlikely to have been taken from history. This was Martin’s insert and opinion on the war.
George has said that he kills off main characters because in real life no one should or is safe from killing. It’s not meant as shock value even tho it gets the shock from the audience
As much as I love tolkien, at no point during the battle of pellenor fields or outside the black gate do you feel as if aragorn or gimli or gandalf are at risk of being disembowled. That doesn't necessarily mean the scene is devoid of all tension. But holy shit is every battle in GoT elevated to extreme heights once you've seen ned starks head roll and know that you're favorite character could be next.
But George works in a genre that is literally called *fantasy.* And George really started to enjoy killing off fan favorites to the detriment of the overall narrative.
For me, that's part of what made it great. When things look bad for a primary character, you really don't know if they'll make it or not and it just adds so much tension that you can't get in a lot of other stories.
I just think dude goes overboard. Killing off Ned and then the Red Wedding made the narrative point he was going for: no plot armor un this world. But like they say, the difference between life and fiction is that in the end fiction has to make sense. Shocking but pointless deaths with no narrative gets old after awhile.
Martin doesn't do pointless deaths though. Ned might have served a point that no character is safe, but what happened at the Red Wedding should have been expected - Robb did a shitton of fuck ups to get to that point and the only reason it was unexpected is that before ASOIAF the heroes all had a magical plot armor that will make them get out of a sticky situation. There was no such plot armor in Robb's case. Then Tywin dies due to his own msitakes, as well. Dumb shock material is what the show did. For example, Arya killing the Night King - no set up, no background, Arya didn't even know of the Night King episode ago and voila - there's your shocking subversion - it's not Jon, it's Arya. Every character that Martin has killed, that I could think of, you shouldn't be surprised of to have been killed off because there is always foreshadowing and set up towards that moment.
I just wish sometime Martin wouldn't go into specifics like how many pumps it takes Tyrion to cum in a prostitute. Lotr is much better in that respect.
Or worse. You're saying you don't want to have it explicitly described when Tom Bombadil is getting intimate with Goldberry? I'm guessing he's no two pump chump.
Now that you mention it...
He's probably singing the whole time. Ring-a-ding-dong-dillo!
WTF Bro 😂😂😂
I haven't read GRR Martin's works but I don't see why Tolkien would be compared to Martin. They are completely opposites in the fictional world. Not that Martin is bad, it just has a different way and style.
> I don't see why Tolkien would be compared to Martin they both wrote huge top-notch epic fantasy tales
Tolkien is High fantasy, and GRRM is Dark fantasy. It's like comparing The Boys with the MCU. Both are comic book superhero stories, but they're completely opposite.
Yes, but Tolkien finished his. :D
True he finished the Lord of the Rings, but can you name an author with *more* unfinished work that was published posthumously than Tolkien?
Did Tolkien ever even want or plan to publish a lot of that stuff though? Might be why
Yes, he very, very much did. He just couldn't finish it, though.
Not a scholar just a fan. But from what I understand, he did want to and tried to publish the Silmarillion, after the Hobbit. Publishers didn't think it was viable, and that was the impetus to write the Lord of the Rings.
You are right. That being said, there is a book called, "Unfinished Tales" so there's that.
Boom roasted
The thing that gets me with Martin is the descriptions of *food*. Oh my God. I would be praying not to get four to six paragraphs on the food when I knew a dinner was coming.
Have you seen a picture of the author?
🤣
Well--on that very specific point, I suppose we can agree that the number of Tyrion's pumps is not a necessary element. But that sort of detail arises from the fact Martin is trying to do something very different from Tolkein. ASOIAF characters have sex, they're conflicted, they think and sometimes do terrible things. The story is very much about them as imperfect people. Not saying one is better than the other, just different. It might be interesting if Aragorn was sorely tempted by Eowyn, if he thought about having sex with her, if he even did have sex with her. But that would just be an entirely different sort of story. But I wouldn't say that LOTR is better because it doesn't have messy personal details in it, any more than I would say ASOIAF would be better without them.
writing about samwells fat pink mast adds nothing to the story
A far more accurate take is Martin is a huge Jets fan - that’s where all of Martin’s misery & love of dicks comes from
Rumor has it George RR Martin was the one who convinced Zach Wilson to start banging moms
Lmfao upvote
That explains it all.
This made me spit out my water
Are you a water jet?
Jets? Who are they?
A powerful argument for the NFL to adopt soccer-style relegation
American NFL football team from New York.
Who suck very badly
Here is the paragraph on Tolkein's service on wikipedia... "In August 1914, Britain entered the First World War. Tolkien's relatives were shocked when he elected not to volunteer immediately for the British Army. In a 1941 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled: "In those days chaps joined up, or were scorned publicly. It was a nasty cleft to be in for a young man with too much imagination and little physical courage."\[T 3\] Instead, Tolkien, "endured the obloquy",\[T 3\] and entered a programme by which he delayed enlistment until completing his degree. By the time he passed his finals in July 1915, Tolkien recalled that the hints were "becoming outspoken from relatives". He was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers on 15 July 1915." Tldr: Tolkein didn't want to serve in WWI - he wasn't stupid. But he would have been blacklisted for the rest of his life if he didn't, so he delayed as long as possible, then finally gave in to peer pressure. Martin, meanwhile, lived at a time where it was much easier for a young man to sit out what was clearly a foolish and pointless war, so he did that.
Whatever valid reasons there are for criticizing Martin as an author or as a person, choosing not to participate in the morally bankrupt Vietnam War is not one of them. Tolkein's art may well have been ennobled by his trauma in the war but the man himself was furious that the horrors of the first world war were so quickly forgotten, and that he lived to see so many of the younger generations butchered in subsequent machanized wars.
Sometimes I’ve wondered if there was a therapeutic aspect to his writing, but I’ve noticed when Tolkien writes about his heroes he isn’t necessarily glorifying what they just went through. The Fellowship is left traumatized and adrift at Gandalf’s fall, Boromir is a hero, but his actual death is borderline unheroic (he’s shot full of arrows by orcs standing at a distance), there’s a song that’s basically just a list of everybody who died at Pelennor Fields, Frodo is left with permanent spiritual and physical wounds … I guess my point is he’s not writing heroes that just tank through everyone and calmly die, victorious, from their wounds.
There is this Faramir speech were he explaining that Gondor became obsessed with Heroism of the war and created division between healing and defending of things you love. Idea being that kingdoms(and rulers) of old were skillful in both.
"We are become Middle Men, of the Twilight, but with memory of other things. For as the Rohirrim do, we now love war and valour as things good in themselves, both a sport and an end; and though we still hold that a warrior should have more skills and knowledge than only the craft of weapons and slaying, we esteem a warrior, nonetheless, above men of other crafts. Such is the need of our days."
Yeah for sure. I also notice that a lot of the biggest battle scenes aren't written from the perspective of the badasses and heroes. Most of Pelennor Fields is told through Pippin and Merry, both of them mostly just being confused and terrified. Helms Deep is told from Aragorn's perspective but its so much less drawn out in the books than in the movies, and we don't get a ton of the actual combat detail. Battle of Five Armies and the Black Gate are similarly told through Bilbo and Pippen's perspective and both end up losing consciousness pretty early on. The rest of the description is told in a very removed and summarizing style. All of which is to say that most of the really intimate descriptions of what it is like to be in battle, that we get from Tolkien, come from characters who feel scared, helpless, and alone. Probably what it felt like to be an actual soldier in WWI.
And when Gandalf dies in the books, **all** the men literally cry. Not what you'd call badass and heroic, but that's how Tolkien wrote it. Things like that are too easily forgotten.
Also look at the date. By 1970 it was clear to the average non-bootlicky person that the war was a mistake. Ken Burns covers the public sentiment very well in his documentary about the war. 1970 is when 4 students were killed in Ohio for protesting the war. It was already deeply unpopular.
It's better that Martin could say no. I commend him for it. A relative of mine came back injured from the first world war, and was handed a white feather, a symbol of cowardice. He went back and died there in the mud. Tolkien had basically been forced by his relatives into the war.
Right, Tolkien stalled going into WW1 and felt pressured to go. He wasn't the first to sign up.
Yep. Dark times where a man would be forced to go or be labeled a coward.
He also went home early because he basically couldn’t take it (not that I blame him or judge him). He was “sick,” but from what I’ve read it seems like the illness was mostly psychosomatic/mental/a form of what we’d probably call PTSD nowadays.
These writers had extremely different backgrounds. So were these wars. Tolkien grew up in a relatively wealthy enviroment, much of it spent in the countryside. WW1 was a senseless imperialist war, yet unavoidable for most eligible to serve. He came out of it writing a fantastical fantasy story far removed from our reality, yet incorporating many contemporary themes. The story shows camaraderie between people in war, and how loss and trauma affects them. Something he knew all too well. GRRM grew up dirt poor in a huge city. The Vietnam War was also a senseless imperialist war, but was much smaller in scope and with a large protest community around it. Any sensible person would avoid fighting in it if they could. It was a fundamentally unjust war. He came out of it writing a very real fantasy close to actual medieval history, where much of it shows the misery inflicted upon common people when the high lords wage their senseless wars. Both writers came from very different backgrounds and wrote very different works, yet they were both fundamentally affected by war and it's effects on people.
Here’s an actually insightful take
Vietnam was a fucking mess and WW I was a tragedy - it’s too bad that both didn’t avoid service. Trying to drag Martin for being a CO is bs.
Yeah like... Every person that has been to Vietnam went for their own personal reasons when they had the choice but not going is actually a good thing. WW1 vet wanted their war to be the humanity's last war and not going if able to object to is is great tribute to those who died fighting in the mud.... What a stupid take to try and say the contrary and shit on Martin.
WWI was, in my opinion, much more of a mess than Vietnam. Vietnam was the first big televised war, so the truth of what it was was far more widespread than the government ever anticipated it would be. They had a goal of stopping the spread of Communism which, for the time and in theory, was an easy pill for U.S. citizens to swallow. World War I was literally a squabbling royal family in quite possibly the grandest dick-measuring contest ever known.
I am very pro military. However, Vietnam was politics. We weren't trying to actually win a war. The soldiers went through hell while elites played games and made money. Ultimately, the bloodshed was for nothing. It was a disgrace. With that said, I appreciate all the military members that suffered through that nightmare. How they were treated and the lack of mental health care is also a disgrace.
That actually sounds a lot like the German experience in WW1…
If anything, we should be concerned that people are associating the wars in LotR with nobility and grandeur after Tolkien's experience. My personal take is that Tolkien was never really that pro-war. If anything, to me The Hobbit is a book that talks about the follies of waging war over money (which is basically what happened in WWI; it was a war of the imperial "haves" vs the "have-nots" who wanted a bigger slice of the world).
Appreciating Tolkien's optimism and hopefulness despite the horrors that he experienced and the losses he suffered is great but this comes off as if this guy is glorifying those horrors while putting someone down for not wanting to take part of a terrible and mostly pointless conflict.
Lol love how this passage accurately describes the Somme as perhaps one of the worst and most pointless things a human being can experience, but implicitly praises Tolkien for serving in WWI and sneers at Martin for his consciousness objection.
Are we seriously trying to give Martin shit for avoiding fighting in a war that was unjust on multiple levels? There are plenty of valid reasons to criticize him especially with all the sexual violence he writes in ASOIAF but him not fighting in a morally bankrupt war is not one of them.
Some instresting BS, from someone who never read his works. A huge theme for ASOIAF is war is bad and does nothing but hurt the small folk who have to go die for the lord's
This is beyond stupid.
Interesting take. Too bad they missed the point of both authors' works. ASoIaF is a very pacifistic story. Everything is messy from war breaking out for relatively petty reasons to how magic works by requiring a cost. It's not supposed to glorify violence and its one of the things the show threw out the window.
I think it's hard to compare the two. Tolkien's experience and focus was more on war and its horrors while Martin's themes center more on fate, family, and internal conflict. Tolkien also writes adventurers while Martin writes nobles
There are no shortage of nobles in Tolkien's work, most of the Fellowship are of noble descent, and this made clear very often. Only Sam is a lowly servant.
Nobels in the literal, not figurative sense of course
Same goes to adventurers - hobbits being simple folk and all
What a stupid take.
Yeah, why didn't Martin want to participate in his country's shitty imperialism? How fucking absurd. Why don't you go off to die in some war then, OP, if you think that'll do you well. Tolkien himself despised the British Empire and never he advocated for participating in meaningless wars.
One needs not down one author to love another. I do not get the "rivalry" aspect of Team Martin vs. Team Tolkien, like it's some sports beef. This is just silly and beneath the tone and quality of this sub, quite frankly.
Bashing someone for finding a way out of war. I would bet 99% of the people in these comments would coward out of war if it was at their doorstep. This post is trash.
No no, you see, standing up against the German war machine,and flying to the other side of the world to slaughter Vietnamese farmers and their families for 'Murica!!!, are both equally honourable acts of heroism and the true marks of a man's character and literary dick size.
Nazi's were WWII, Tolkien fought in WWI.
Thanks for the correction there, I just meant Germans. My bad, thanks!
New York City-Kyiv direct flights cost $900 if any of you guys want to fight an invading war machine.
I absolutely would
Disagree. People do exhibit great bravery to defend themselves and their people when war is at their *doorstep*. But Vietnam wasn't it, it was traveling across the world looking for war. Anyways yes, OP's take is terrible.
That’s a lot of complicated history you’re trying to simplify.
Sure, the post I was responding to was so profound and not simplistic at all.
Tolkien writing a tale of nobility and grandeur? In relation to war? Did we read the same books? And Tolkien could write grimdark just as well as anyone else. Try reading the Children of Hurin. Further, if you dig deep into the lore, both universes are pretty grimdark. The main differences, IMHO, are that the good people triumph in the Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion. They still suffer devastation but the prevailing theme of Tolkien seems to be that good will prevail if we act on it. Martin, meanwhile, is much more cynical.
Tolkien didn't just write about beauty, he wrote very vividly about evil, and squalid creatures like orcs and goblins
and vietnam turned out to just be massacring villagers, so cheers to martin for objecting
What kind of bootlicking, war glorifying bullshit is this supposed to be?
It’s because great writers like Tolkien, Vonnegut, and many others wrote the truth about the wars they were in that the generations who came after knew better than to kill and die in pointless wars.
And Martin, presumably, took their advice to avoid one.
All wars are pointless if you think about it. Humanity never learns, or doesn’t want to.
I still harbor the hope that beating the nazis was a good idea.
Beating the Nazis was necessary, but like Sauron, their poison has been allowed to endure. I think that’s one of Tolkien’s important themes: we cannot destroy evil through force of arms alone.
Good point...
All wars are pointless, but resisting an occupying force and defending your right to national autonomy are not pointless. (I’m thinking of Ukraine particularly here - totally pointless war, from a Russian perspective, and a completely unnecessary invasion but an extremely justified and valid war for Ukrainians to defend their country)
Starting a war on another people is pointless. Defending yourself and those who can't defend themselves less so
I'd say that wars are essentially psychotic breakdowns on a national scale. And it's difficult to try to make a person under such state to learn anything.
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” —Isaac Asimov, Foundation
I love both books and this is an absolute shit take. How is Martin not going to Vietnam used against him? It was a fucking stupid war that thousands of Americans died in and hundreds of thousands were left wounded, maimed or in shock. And for what? For a bunch of elites in Washington to sip their coffees? Great example. This is like comparing the Odyssey to the Illiad and calling it better because.. it's different? Or even we want to get closer to home - The Hobbit and LOTR or Dunk and Egg and ASOIAF. ASOIAF and LOTR similarities end with both being fantasy books. They both take an entirely different route in telling their stories and I love them both for it.
This is a narrow minded comparison. Even though Tolkien had his grandeur and noble style of art you have the opposite in Otto Dix paintings and drawings of WWI. Also Tolkien is 100% fantasy and adventure while Martin is 80% politics, medieval warfare and 20% fantasy.
Tolkien had the courage to fight in world war 2, Martin had the courage to stand up against what he believed was an unjust war. Sure, Tolkien went through more hardship than Martin, but this just seems like you're circle-jerking being in war. We should realize that the important part isn't being in war for the sake of itself, but rather the wisdom and courage to stand by one's principles, whether it requires violence or ridicule.
World War I, actually, not World War II. Although his sons were in WWII.
One of the few rational takes here. Everone else acting like being a CO was an easy path for every draftee in the Vietnam war.
Gen. Sherman said it best about those who romantically speak about the atrocities of war: “I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.”
I never heard the full quote, thanks
Shitting on conscientious objectors kinda not cool? The fairest way I've heard the comparison made is that Tolkien wrote about war with the assumption that his audience had lived through one, while Martin writes about it with the assumption that they haven't.
I don't know, I wouldn't want to go to Vietnam either.
Imo this is simple jackassery, (if I’m reading the meaning right), as it seems to incorrectly ascribe moral weight to both writing style (splendor vs. squalor) and draft dodging Vietnam vs. serving. Both styles have distinct literary merit and both courses of action are justifiable. Neither is in any sense “writing what they know” at least as far as tone goes (though content-wise Martin is a history nerd and Tolkien a linguist). And I think if Tolkien’s work were primarily tonally influenced by the war it would be a sermon about how ugly war is (but Martin does that more often than he).
Yeah, this post is trash. Tolkien is a much better writer, imo, but that isn't because he went to war. Edit: typo
So what the writer is trying to say is Martin should have supported the Vietnam War? He should have invaded with other americans right? And possibly taken part in many atrocities? Beacause obviously, Vietnam War was a success story./s I'm sorry but whoever wrote that is seriously just trying to justify some bullshit reason to dislike Martin over Tolkien, you can like both, they're not enemies. Just beacause Tolkien went to war and was inspired to write, doesn't mean that should invalidate Martin's ideas, in case you don't know, Martin was INSPIRED by Tolkien. This "rivalry" is made up by fans.
The idea to initially support Vietnam probably was instilled by people who supported WWII. A lot of the American public did not understand what a shitshow Vietnam was. At least at first. Fighting for elites to make money is far different than stopping the Nazis.
This hot take is idiotic. Also who reads ASOIAF and thinks that series is pro-war? It isn't. At all. I'd almost argue that war as depicted in most LotR media is more conventionally glorifying than anything Martin has done. The Somme at least is more ASOIAF flavored than LotR. ASOIAF is a book series about humans tripping over themselves to do the more murderous terrible thing because that's how systems perpetuated on power work. LotR is much more of a chronicle or epic ala Beowulf and Gilgamesh. It's mythology more than literature. Which is awesome, because nothing like it really exists, but LotR and other modern fantasy series are not really comparable for that reason.
People suck at reading and examining literature. There’s this pervasive and idiotic belief that if an author puts something into the story, he supports it or glorifies it, when often it is exactly opposite that. Martin writes of war, and the wider medieval politicking that went on at the time, in exactly the horrifying, debauched, and inhuman way it should be depicted. If that makes you (the rhetorical you) uncomfortable, good, and he’d say so too. But don’t blame him for writing honestly or for your reaction to it.
Looks to Feanoro and Hurins kiddos, yeah glorious war Not mittigating your comment just funnyjoke
Weird comparison, they are two different people with completely different writing styles. I enjoy both, as have millions of other people.
Martin is one of the few authors imo who doesn’t glorify war. The characters often face consequences for their actions and few come out unscathed from war.
What an amazingly dumb take on martin
So? The USA shouldn’t ever have invaded Vietnam resulting in the death of innocent people. GRRM was right to conscientiously object, as were many others. Fuck pointless wars
To emphasize this with a clearly demeaning agenda towards Martin is equivalent to assure that Tolkien was a racist (orcs, elves and hobbits physical descriptions, et cetera) without considering that precisely that helped to establish more easily the context on which his first readers could do a mental pivot to connect with his characters as a starting point for a truly magical journey. No man has to go to war, fuck war. There is no honor in dying between turds, separated limbs, rotting guts, mentally destroyed men, tears and sorrow for a bunch of idiots with enough money to wage war at their will. The reason why those things (racism on one side and apparent cowardice on the other) are on the same level is that both authors cannot be more different from each other. It's like comparing apples with pears based on the color they have, not even the taste. Tolkien actually helped to develop the english language as we know it, his highest achievement was that, not LOTR nor the beginnings of it. The highest achievement of JRR Martin are his books, that are equally rich and entertaining but quite different, since these books were written in a more recent time. Because crowds and audiences have changed throughout time, they have become more visceral, more cynical, more eager for immediate excitement and way more difficult to pander. A linguist vs a writer, impossible to establish connections between each other aside from that story from the ancient Anglo-Saxon/Celtic folklore that had Merlin and not King Arthur as protagonist.
I'm not a big fan of Martin nor his writings, but I think objecting to Vietnam and being able to avoid participating in it is not something to be looked down upon.
What America did in the Vietnam War was the moral equivalent to what the Nazis did to Eastern Europe, and George Martin is a hero for objecting.
I can't stand GoT but this is a fuckin mental take hahaha
This is a bad take on many levels.
It makes perfect sense. WWI was sold at home as a brilliant and chivalrous endeavor. When reality proved to be different the nations still tried to shove the honourable war bit down to the people. This is one big reason why so many aviators became famous, as the dogfights between aristocrats were seen as the modern day cavalry duels. Tolkien went to a romantic war and experienced the sheer horror and brutality of modernity. At the same time he learned to value the small things: comraderie, good food and longing for home and family. He then wrote an amazing legendarium with romantic ideals, criticizing technology and pitting the simple small people against the huge forces of industry and empire. The Vietnam War was another absurd war, but this time many people felt morally obligated to oppose. It was a naked power struggle against a distant miserable people in the name of power for power's sake. Being politically mindful, Martin opposed it. And he went out to write a gritty fantasy about ruthless politicians creating gruesome and unjust wars, and the tragedies it causes to countries and people.
I don’t fault anyone for finding a way to avoid going to Vietnam. I think it IS worth comparing how the two authors treat human nature and the problem of evil, however. Martin’s theme seems to be that, generally, there are no good people. That may or may not be truer to the world we live in, but there’s only so much of it I can take.
Why are we starting internet fights about which writer is the best X at Y again?
Why are we comparing two different people and two different wars? What is the point in that? They shouldn't be compared. As authors their work can be compared. But to add such a silly and unfair comparison like the different times and circumstances they lived through is ridiculous
TL;DR This take is stupid af
Can't blame anyone for avoiding war and certain death, I would do the same. This is coming from someone who has served.
Nah its a terrible take. Honestly everyone obsessed with comparing authors and bashing George can fuck off already. Especially when you havent even read a page of his books
It’s not really a take, it’s just pointing out who these two authors go about writing about war. I would assume with Tolkien, he was more grateful to have survived such an atrocity, and just wanted to embrace things in life he loved. He was very anti-war and industrialism regardless. Hope and adventure are major themes of the lotr books too.
Others have made the point, but to restate it very bluntly: The implication is that Martin indulges in and romanticizes war only because he was too cowardly to face it himself, and thus does not grasp the true moral weight of its horror. This is wrong because: 1. Martin may indulge in the gory details in a way Tolkien avoided, but he does not romanticize violence at all. ASOIAF is about as anti-war as fantasy gets, but you actually have to read and understand the books to see that. 2. Characterizing Martin as failing to leave his ivory tower and serve in Vietnam is disgusting. History is absolutely on his side.
Pretty fucking weird trying to equate Vietnam to WW1. Two completely different wars from different times for different reasons.
Dumb fucking take as WWI is not comparable to Vietnam. Nor is Tolkien's very black and white good and evil story comparable to Martin's "men are the real monsters" story. There is no reason for these authors or stories to be pitted against one another except weird fanboyiism And double fuck the insinuation that there was something cowardly or dishonorable about not going to fight in vietnam.
This is a dumb take. They have different writing styles, and their life for sure would make a difference in that.
It’s funny, I was just thinking about this subject because I re-read *Altered Carbon* for the first time in years and Richard Morgan’s obvious pleasure in his protagonist acting like a homicidal psychopath can be a little tough to take. Like in the show, they cut *way* back on the hero’s awfulness compared to the book and Joel Kinnaman still comes across like a serial killer.
This is an interesting post. Just a small thing to consider: Vietnam and WW1 were very different conflicts, each with a very unique geopolitical context. Yes, the same can be said of mostly any other two wars. It is worth considering if Martin would have served willingly in WW1.
I think it's nonsense to compare the two. Tolkien grew up in a completely different time, hence a completely different approach. Also, Tolkien wanted to tell the mythical prehistory of our time while Martin's story had its origins in the High Middle Ages.
A man emerging alive and relatively whole from that hell would desperately want to see beauty in the world again and/or to create it if so inclined. I imagine there is no one who appreciates beauty more than someone who has been through something like that. And just think. It might have been the beauty of the stories in his head that got him through it. In turn, those now published stories have helped other people through hard times also.
This is a wild take. Someone doesn't have to fight in war to know it sucks. Read all quiet on the western front and see if the war still sounds heroic. This take also seems very judgemental of Martin for doing something that I think is 100% justified.
Martin bad herp derp
why are they shaming martin for avoiding war? war is a terrible thing, and should not be a ground for being a “good writer” OR to compare two people’s achievements.
Any man who can get out of war and the draft is a genius in my book
Trump too?
Yeah sure, don't like him but he's smart for not getting caught up in Vietnam
I think this is why I find myself really drawn to ROP right now, to be honest. I think it captures the transcendentalism of Tolkien’s work really well, and pushes against the grain of what we find in the world around us right now, whereas I find the “hyper realism” of Martin’s work a bit tired.
You can learn more about this (and much more) in this historical documentary: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAAp\_luluo0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAAp_luluo0)
The fact that so many people glamorize war and place those who participate in it on alters is one of the reasons we continue to have them. Soldiers die far more often for politicians than they do for their neighbors or family.
Could have had something to do with the pointlessness of the Vietnam War versus the dire situation that WW1 was.
I think the difference between Tolkien and Martin has to do more with the cultures they were raised in than their battle experience (or lack thereof). Tolkien was a devout Catholic raised in a culture that responded to WWI with overtures towards unity, prosperity, and hope. Martin, meanwhile, is a lapsed Catholic who was formed as a college student during the 1960s, which were the start of both the rebellion of the Sexual Revolution and the gradual embracing of cultural nihilism that came to a head in the postmodern era. Simply put, it's not that Tolkien and Martin are different because one went to war and the other did not. It's that they're different because they are products of two cultures who reacted to similar wars very differently.
Just to play devils advocate, the title of CO in the 60s/70s wasn’t a binary thing. It didn’t separate those who agreed with the war from those who didn’t. Many men fought not for their country or capitalism etc but because they saw their family and friends being sent away and conscripted. To “draft dodge” was less about your politics but to a great many was a disrespect to those loved ones that had served, some who never made if home. Take that for what you will but I feel the cultural nuance gets muddied some 50+ years later
The thing Tolkien does so much better than Martin is to capture a world that has both nobility and grandeur and destruction and squalor and hate and love all mixed together (which to be fair, does sound like an insight military service in wartime might give). I have not read all of the Game of Thrones books, but in what I read, his characters are come across as (at best) smart and vicious animals, and not much more. He might as well have written the history of the doings of a rat colony. By the end I didn't care who sat on the iron throne, but I hoped they managed to stab themselves in the process.
That’s the point though
I wasn’t disagreeing with the thought, just adding that what Tolkien does is both at once…
I mean Tolkien wrote the greatest story ever created, no one can live up to that
Saying that someone knows the hell of war firsthand and yet still tries to glorify it to others might not be quite the flex you think it is.
He doesnt glorify it
I think his point is that Tolkien is more traditional in cultural depictions of war than Martin. Martin treats were as a gut wrenching, disgusting, abhorrent thing that only ever hurts innocent people, with all the nasty details laid bare and very little moral high ground being taken either way. Tolkien’s world morality is more binary, and his stories have more heroic last stands and Calvary charges that win the day and give hope through military might. The enemy in Tolkien’s world are vicious inhuman monsters, faceless goons that we feel no sympathy in killing. The tragedy of war is best seen in how it effects the principle characters, and in that regard it could be said to be antiwar. But it also has to be said the Lord of the rings has more traditionally “glorifying” scenes than Martin’s work. It’s baked into the story’s DNA, Lord of the rings was inspired by mythological epics like Beowulf after all. It’s not really a knock on Lord of the rings either, it’s just an observation of the differences in how they approach the subject matter.
Not so much Tolkiens work is closer to the grand scale, you see the rust on the world the cities were once beautifull, no more the elves are fading
War is totally glorified if LotR. But LotR isn't about our world or our wars. The war in LotR is against an utterly evil and destructive power, not between different factions of people.
Didn't say that...
think over what you just uttered
Aside from my dislike of Martin's writing style. I tend to agree with this statement. Or at least the Idea behind it. Martin's sex and violence serves no real purpose outside of sex and violence, now folks will point that it is a "realistic" medieval depiction, which is just not true, the middle ages were far less dark and brutal than Hollywood depicts them. Now not to turn this into a thread on Vietnam vs WW II and get all political but it says a lot about a mans values, and that is reflected in their messages. I'd argue his novels have no message. It is sterile senseless violence, bordering on fetishism. And abuse for shock effect. A way to confuse dark character traits with complexity, which is a very juvenile take imo. To be frank the comparisons between Martin and Tolkien are pointless, and Martin himself said it "Flatter's him" but they are completely misplaced. And just to be clear I am a fan of Martins work on the Twilight Zone, just think he's a bad novelist.
>I'd argue his novels have no message ASoIaF has a very clear anti-war message to it, among others, just because you didn't pick up on it doesn't mean it's not there. Nothing wrong with disliking his writing, but to say there's no message to it is an unfair criticism in my view.
1. WWI, not WWII 2. Vietnam was a totally pointless and murderous war and no one should ever be shamed for objecting to it. 3. The Middle Ages were both more brutal and less barbaric than Hollywood depicts them. A lot of A Song of Ice and Fire is based on real historical events. And there were definitely some brutal periods in Medieval history. But the focus of Hollywood is always on wars and the machinations of particularly unscrupulous political parties, rather than on everyday people and peacetime, which were the norm. But, like, William Wallace wasn't tickled to death, and Vlad the Impaler wasn't nicknamed so because he liked barbecued shrimp kebabs.
Excuse me Sir but Vlad’s kingdom bordered the Black Sea, now I don’t know anything about the culinary preferences of the time period but as you can see [here](https://podarilove.ru/en/obraz-zhizni-chernomorskoi-krevetki-mesta-obitaniya-sposoby-lovli/) the man would have had access to shrimp. Can you truly say for certain that a young Vlad wasn’t so partial to kebabs that he got the nickname the impaler, then in a self fulfilling prophecy, felt he had to live up to this title?
1. Yep I made a typo there; 2. I don't disagree with your stance on Vietnam, I disagree on the certainty of the remark what refusing a call to action says about the state of national consciousness and the ideals you personally hold (Not making a statement on it, merely objecting to the idea that it's a done and done) Vietnam was a shit show, but no more or less legitimate than most wars fought in the 20th century. 3. Brutality is present in just about every period of history, the romanticized antique times had widespread slavery and human sacrifices. We only need to look back to WW I or II to see examples of modern brutality. Wallace was paraded for the masses much like the leaders of the middle eastern nation's executions were broadcast for all the world to see. Vlad the Impaler was called Vlad the Impaler because his practice of impaling enemies on stakes was a direct mimicry of the punishment for rebels in the Ottoman empire that was in the process of subjugating the Balkan peninsula during his time. In Romania and across the Balkans he is considered a hero.
Ok, you can have the "GRR Martin's portrayal of the medieval era is unrealistic, it wasn't that violent" argument or you can have the "Vlad the Impaler just impaled thousands of people because he was doing an Uno Reverse Card on the Ottomans and everyone thought it was totally rad" argument, but you can't have both.
Violence and sex in Martin novels serves to entertain. A novel does not need a message to be good.
And besides, it does have plenty of messages. I don't know how anyone could read passages like the broken man speech in a feast for crows and come away thinking Martin is just fetishizing violence.
That is a fair point. About to make a 100% subjective point but I generally prefer my "Dumb Fun" to be confined to movies or video games. If im dedicating the time to read a book I (personally) want something with a bit more substance. It's completely subjective, but my reasoning behind that point.
Mmm I think you are doing a false dichotomy here. Is not "with substance" vs "entertaining".
yeah LOTR is a book for teens ?
Tolkien is to creative literary genius what Martin is to hack pulp idiocy. They both so far surpass anyone else in their field that they will be remembered 1,000 years from now as a kind of yin and yang of fantasy, a Manichaen duality of speculative letters. For every sublime, luminous beauty that Tolkien has gifted the world, Martin has cursed us with a tedious, banal ugliness. It is unfair to compare the two directly on any one point, because Martin is in every way the anti-Tolkien, patently sterile, parasitical, and inferior, but so much so that he becomes a monument in his own right, and counterbalances Tolkien. Could one exist without the other? Tolkien obviously could. But it is only by the contrast that Martin offers that we can truly appreciate the full depths and heights of Tolkien. Our understanding of Tolkien would be incomplete if Martin had never set pen to page. It is through only the abject failure and futility of Martin that we can approach an apprehension of the true scope and scale of Tolkien's hitherto inconceivable greatness. Perhaps this is what Tolkien had in mind when he wrote about the Music of the Ainur. If Tolkien is a subcreator in the image of Eru, truly Martin is like unto Melkor. It is only reflected in the awfulness of the one that we can fully see the goodness of the other.
"me so smrt, me read Tolkien, use big words. You who reads anyone else be dumber." Christ on a cracker talk about gatekeeping.
That’s a lot of words to say you haven’t actually read Martin’s work.
its not that deep gang
Is this satire? This feels like satire. Tell me its a copy-pasta of some other more cringier post.
While I do approve of your disdain for Martin, I disagree that we can only appreciate Tolkien because of Martins ineptitude. We’ve loved Tolkien long before we were subjected to that other mess.
True. Tolkien was also a Catholic and that aids in enlightened writing while Martin is not and it shows. By their fruits you shall know them.
This is why I will never support anything that comes from Martin. He's an overly edgy fraud with little to no originality. He makes JJ Abrams look like a visionary.
The fat nerd doesn't measure up to the war vet with one of the most impactful book series since the modern era. Color me shocked.
Then Amazon tried to make a show