Contrasting J.R.R Tolkien and George R.R Martin

...and we had a neat list of moral gray characters in LotR, from Sauron (who almost turned to the good side), to Gollum, Boromir, Galadriel, Denethor, Boromir, Lobelia...

dark fanatsy

Martin manages to provide us with a mixture of fantasy and horror, After researching I found that martin tends to write dark fantasy which is a fantasy book with elements of horror placed in it. Martin is very good at what he does but he will never be a Tolkien.

Ps: martin please write faster

If I had to pick teams, I'd go with Tolkien. My reasons are simple, I've spent more time with Tolkien's characters, I am more emotionally invested in Frodo and Bilbo and the rest of the gang, and all the dwarves and elves and characters, than I am with GRRM's characters. That said, I've only so far read Game of Thrones. Maybe my opinion'll change once I've finished the series.


One thing I will say though, is that Tolkien's stories are very black and white in their battle of good vs. evil. Sauron is bad, Gandalf is good. Orcs are bad, elves are good. etc. etc. In A Song of Ice and Fire the characters are very grey, there is no good and evil. Even the loathsome "bad" characters have good traits, Cersei Lannister is not entirely evil and neither are Ned Stark or Daenerys Targaryen wholly good. It moreso echoes real life in which people aren't good or evil, but rather people do good or evil.
Yeah some of the LOTR characters might cross the grey line, such as Gollum/Smeagol, but they are the exception.


But given all of that, I would still go with Tolkien because his books as a whole inspire me to be better as a person, to write better, and to just be better. Martin's books, while very well written and keep me turning the page, don't necessarily inspire me to be a better anything. They are very entertaining books, though. But the Lord of the Rings are something far beyond mere entertainment.

I tried to get into Martin, but I quickly developed the sense that he was yanking my chain--drawing it out, making it up as he goes, throwing out plots that will not really be resolved, just ended. He was heaping up the melodrama, weaving a tale told by an idiot, giving us a book directed by Michael Bay--lots of thing happening most of which signify very little.

I had that same feeling after one episode of "Lost", one season of "Battlestar Galactica" and after about 4 books in the Wheel of Time. I trust it.

In some ways, I feel the vast gulf between Tolkien and Martin can be summed up in their treatment of language. Tolkien gives us complete languages and alphabets; Martin gives us "sir" spelled "ser".

I'll try and read it again to be fair.

oooooh said:

One thing I will say though, is that Tolkien's stories are very black and white in their battle of good vs. evil. Sauron is bad, Gandalf is good. Orcs are bad, elves are good. etc. etc.

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I have to disagree with you. Sauron and Saruman are fallen, i.e. were once good. Boromir has good and evil in him, as does Denethor. Gandalf is tempted by the Ring. The elves and dwarves fall into suspicion, greed and evil ways, especially in The Silmarillion and The Hobbit, and Frodo and Gollum are battlegrounds, and both ultimately succumb to the Ring.

In fact, I would say the marring of good is a major theme in Tolkien.

GiantRampagingPencil said:

I have to disagree with you. Sauron and Saruman are fallen, i.e. were once good. Boromir has good and evil in him, as does Denethor. Gandalf is tempted by the Ring. The elves and dwarves fall into suspicion, greed and evil ways, especially in The Silmarillion and The Hobbit, and Frodo and Gollum are battlegrounds, and both ultimately succumb to the Ring.

In fact, I would say the marring of good is a major theme in Tolkien.

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Excellent point.

Xelebes said:

Martin is writing to remind us of the darker moments of humanity in order to stifle any hubris while Tolkien wrote to remind people of the triumphant moments of humanity to lift a downtrodden spirit.

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I love that! Sorry, I've been following all this great discussion quietly, but that there is some good insight. It's as if authors instinctively write material that serves to keep us sane.

I was rather tired when I started reading A Game of Thrones, and I do have a short attention span, but as I read a few pages, I got so lost in the characters that I gave up. There was a Rob, Bob, Bill, Billy. Alright, I'm making these names up, but there were so many introductions at once that I got confused. But again, I was tired.

Could say the same about The Hobbit and LOTR. There were long descriptions of who was related to who, but I could clearly distinguish between them - though, perhaps, because I'd seen the movie first, so it's probably unfair. Sam was just briefly mentioned, and I was clearly looking out for him.

GiantRampagingPencil said:

In fact, I would say the marring of good is a major theme in Tolkien.

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Which is sort of the point for many who make the black/white accusation. There's certainly a continuum here; black and whit and shades of grey. Sometimes, the cut-off point may not be quite that easy. Also, how long is redemption still possible? And when do people become so corrupted that they are no longer understandable? The morality is certainly not simple, but it remains one-dimensional, really. There's good and its corruption, and you can usually easily tell which is which. At least that's what I gather from discussions, the films, and what excerpts I read. (I never managed to get through the books, for reasons other than the morality.)

Some people, like me, aren't easily satisfied by a good-evil morality (though it can still be very interesting to read). Corruption of good is no argument, because it still assumes a basic (set of) value(s) from which all the morality flows. The idea is that black/white sucks all the colour from the world.

There are levels: good "races"("angels")/bad "races"("demons"); good people/bad people; good deeds/bad deeds; good motivation/bad motivation; good results/bad results... You can have a very complex structure, but still only work with a single dimension.

If, on the other hand, you work with people in a social context as your starting point, you ask what they have in common and construct an impromptu moral for interactions on that basis, and if you add another person you re-calculate. It's a different approach, though the result may look quite similar for large streches. Basically, the focus in on understanding rather than judging, and if done right any judgement will be self-conscious.

I get the idea that the two approaches might describe the difference in moral approach between LotR and SoIF, though I can't really tell having read none of them (and knowing next to nothing about Martin's works).

Tolkien was a pioneer, pretty much inadvertently.

Martin is derivative to the point I can't read his stuff.

caw

Stoneghost said:

People noted that Tolkien's work had a lot of material removed. I suggest that one of the reasons that Tolkien's work is considered the gold standard for fantasy is wrote the whole story arc BEFORE publishing. This current method of starting indefinite series is a recipe for lower quality material than might otherwise be produced.

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This, this, this. A thousand times.

Why oh why do readers want to compare Tolkien with Martin, or any other author for that matter? Why do enjoy each author for what they offer, or move on...

Not every cook uses the same recipe for each dish served...

thothguard51 said:

Why oh why do readers want to compare Tolkien with Martin, or any other author for that matter? Why do enjoy each author for what they offer, or move on...

Not every cook uses the same recipe for each dish served...

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I understand, but nevertheles I've gotten a lot out of reading this thread (I read the whole thing too...) I think comparing authors, however different, is a good jumping off point for discussion.