Resolved: LOTR More Realistic Than GOT

 

This post contains some spoiler from the finale of Game of Thrones and assumes some knowledge on the part of the reader of Games of Thrones and Lord of the Rings

Dany and Drogon

When talking about fantasy series it is a hard thing to talk about which was more realistic.  There are a lot of ways to take the “realism” of a fantasy series, having admitted that let us look at the ways that Games of Thrones (GOT) is often said to be more realistic than Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and see which is actually more realistic.

In what follows I will be, mostly, avoiding the Mythic elements in both GOT and LOTR.  Since this is a discussion of “realism” the fact that LOTR’s mythic elements are far more consistent and thematic than GOT mishmash of magic, religion, and prophecy doesn’t really come into this discussion.   It seems obvious that the authors took radically different approaches to the Mythic in their stories with Tolkien developing a detailed idea of the origins and uses of magic and then applying those rules to the world while Martin seems to take the view that he could just put in what was cool or he thought he needed for his story.  At the same time, I won’t get into some of the nits that one can pick about Tolkien’s incredibly fanciful mountain ranges or what it would mean for a world to have 15 “years” of Summer or Winter and what a mess that would be for human life.   On most issues like this, I will give both GOT and LOTR a pass.  So what criteria are we using to judge?

The arguments I hear the most about GOT being more realistic then LOTR is that GOT draws out a more nuanced portrait of human motivations, actions, and sins while LOTR’s characters are more idealized and in the world of politics LOTR is a fully idealized fantasy and GOT is very nuanced because it is based on the War of the Roses.  These are the criteria we will use.

Love, Women, and Sex

Eowyn of Rohan

One of the strongest cases for GOT being realistic is the story’s portrayal of sex as both a human motivation and a major plot motivator for the main characters.  Events in the story are killed off by the murder of Jon Arryn and Bran being pushed from the tower to cover up brother-sister incest.  Relationships with women drive much of Tyrion’s motivations throughout the story and Cersi’s abusive marriage and forbidden love of her brother emotionally and mentally handicaps her making her into the incompetent villain in the books and brilliant, murderous villain of the show.  There is plenty of sex in the show and the books meant only to titillate and entertain but Martin acknowledges in ways that Tolkien does not how sex, love and lust drives the decisions of the characters in the way that shape the lives of millions.  This seems of a point in GOT’s favor that there is fuller portrait of human motivations but then again not so fast.

The nature of Tolkien’s tale is not to look into the dynamics of dynastic politics and forbidden loves.  Tolkien bathes his story and history in Romance from Beren and Luthien, to Earendal and Elwing, and then Aragorn and Arwen and Faramir and Eowyn.  It is true that Tolkien had a thing for bachelors.  Bilbo never marries and adopts an orphan nephew, we know quite a bit about the Gaffer but nothing about Sam’s mother.  Frodo’s friends are all bachelors, Gandalf has no known relationships with women, Aragorn and Arwen relationship is very much in the background, Elrond’s wife is dead.  It is hard to name any character’s mother that we know is alive in Tolkien’s tale.  It is not going too far to point out that Tolkien seems to try and avoid writing about too many women in his story and he streamlined his tale in a way that left some important women on the sidelines of the story.

Tolkien does, however, explore complicated love relationships and how love and duty can be in tension and lead to tragedy as it does with Eowyn and he also explores complicated family relationships with the Stewards of Gondor and how Aragorn has to deal with the tension of his desire and duty in reclaiming his Throne.    More importantly though Tolkien’s tale takes place over the course of almost two years, no children are growing up and training to be assassins in Tolkien, and he is telling a tale of a quest undertaken by men and war fought by men there is a not a lot of room in that tale for the role of women behind the scenes.  It might have been interesting to see the Prince of Dol Amroth saying farewell to his wife and mother to fight in Gondor and then seeing these two heroic women plot and scheme to protect the city from the Corsairs of Umbar.  But did we need to see that?  Would that have added to the tale being told by Tolkien?  Martin in GOT indulged a ton of background information and needless personal background information that did nothing to move the plot along.  Tolkien’s tale is more streamlined but I don’t think it less realistic because of it.  Martin at one point devotes many pages to establishing characters around Cersei just to give us an encounter where Cersi wants to “take” another Noblewoman “like a man” to know what “Robert must have felt…”.  Is that actually more realistic or just a lot of wasted time?

Realpolitik

Varys master of whispers

Let’s move on into the GOT strength politics.  Now GOT has a much more complicated set of politics than LOTR because Martin is exploring gigantic realms and cultures across many years of time and he is not streamlining his tale at all while Tolkien obviously did.   For instance, would have it been interesting to see the debates at Dale and the Lonely Mountain about fighting the Dark Lord or making peace with him?  Would I have been glad for a rousing speech from Dain about doing the right thing and keeping faith with their friends?  Sure!  Did we need that in the story though?  The politics of Rohan, and Saruman’s subtle undermining of that Kingdom and the way that Aragorn cared about his legitimacy in taking his throne was very realistic.  Look at how methodical Aragon was in establishing a legitimate rule: freed Rohan to come to Gondor’s aid by fighting for them at Helm’s Deep and then smashed a centuries-old enemy, the Corsairs, in battle and then brought all the armies of Gondor to help the besieged capital.  After the battle, he healed the wounded in ways unknown to the healers of Gondor.  He did not simply claim the throne by legal right but built a legitimate claim to the throne, methodically.   Some of the would-be kings in GOT should have taken notes.

In GOT we have a veneer of sophisticated politics but it breaks down under the lightest scrutiny.  Jon Arryn, Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark are all supposed to be highly accomplished soldiers who have won at least two major wars.  Yet none of them thought to secure the military in and around Kings Landing?  The Gold Cloaks were left up for grabs, the Lannisters were allowed to build a military presence but where were the men of the Vale loyal to Arryn?  Where were guards loyal to Robert?  Why wasn’t Ned told to bring more loyal soldiers with him?  There were no veterans of Robert’s wars that all three men trusted to lead the Gold Cloaks?  That alone is practically unbelievable and why were people afraid of Robert finding out that his sons and daughter were not his own?  He had no power in his own city.  He could call power to him from far away but by the time it got there, he would already be dead.    Robert could have survived the boar, found out about his wife’s incest and ordered her arrest and it would have gone down no differently than Ned ordering the arrest.

That part of the story was not very well plotted at all.  Martin led us to believe  Robert, Ned and Jon are competent and won wars but they turn out to be fools that don’t know the very basics of security.  Either winning those wars was blind luck or all three men had become senile.  Also, what is the source of Tywin’s power?  Tywin is a ruthless tyrant, who is effective and feared but he also moved tens of thousands of men to die for him and we are never given a reason why.  Men like Tywin can build loyal followings based on success and money.  Tywin having a very effective army makes sense but why are the people of Casterly Rock behind him?  He doesn’t care about them and they know that.  Once Robb has killed about 50,000 Lannisters and Tywin is losing where is he finding more men?  People don’t like dying for a ruthless tyrant that only cares about the glory of his own family.  The men he sends to recruit just won’t find men willing to join the Lannister army after so many disasters.  Why does it matter to the small farmer, poor knight or common peasant who sits in Casterly Rock?  This lock the Lannisters have on their home and the enormous manpower it gives them is never explained or explored because it is unrealistic.  Realism would have been to contrast how the entire North mobilizes to follow the Starks, who obviously care about their realm and how the Lannisters have to buy their armies.  The contrast would have been the strange loyalty of Stark’s men and the mercenary nature of the Lannister forces.  Instead, people betray the Starks and all the Lannister men stay loyal.  That is is not realistic.

Now Robb dying because he chose love over political expediency during the war is realistic but at the same time having that decision go so deeply wrong was not all that realistic.  The Frey’s could have negotiated for nearly any deal at that point from a proven winner in Robb and most families would have done that.  Frey, instead of taking that deal from Robb and retaining his honor and gaining more good will, plots with Tywin and makes his family the most hated and reviled family in the Seven Kingdoms.  From a valued ally he moved his family to an object of hate to thousands of people wishing nothing more than to kill them.  Tywin is smart in this scenario because he takes an obvious opportunity to help himself but the Frey’s were pretty stupid, how could any of them think they would end up ok after such a terrible, public and infamous betrayal?

As for Tywin and the Frey’s Tolkien has plenty of men out for themselves, blinded by their own ambition and tricked by promises for the power they never should have believed.  I don’t see how GOT is more realistic then LOTR, longer and more detailed perhaps, but not more realistic.

EVIL

eye of Sauron

Both LOTR and GOT have outright evil in their stories that are very black and purely evil.  GOT has the White Walkers and the Army of the Dead which so far as we know is an out of control doomsday weapon meant to wipe out all mankind.  Their desire for genocide, in so far as it is a desire, makes them evil but we can’t even be sure the White Walkers have any more agency than a Nuclear bomb has.  They are just an army of rolling death and I am not sure if they even want anything.  So the White Walkers might not even be evil in any true sense of the word and might only be a threat to our survival like a weapon or giant tidal wave.  Evil instead is found only in the hearts of men there is no reason given for that, no fall, no sin or temptation.  It is just the way we are.  We are not sure what any of the religions offer to cure that evil just that at least some of them ask men and women to be better and act in kindness but we don’t know why.  There is a resurrection in GOT but there is no transformation, resurrection makes you less than you in most cases and in the best case keeps you exactly the same.  The Lord of Light seems to have compelled Beric Dondarrion to sacrifice his life to resurrect Caitlyn Stark but she turned into a monstrous force of Vengeance and that makes me wonder if he is “good” himself.  It does not take a lot of talent to say that many people are stupid and evil and just leave it at that.

In LOTR we have a much more subtle form of evil Sauron, tricks, betrays and beguiles.  He makes men, Elves and Dwarves of goodwill distrust each other can make even the Wise fall like Saruman who is a Maia like Sauron himself.  Even in places like Lothlorien, only the Lady Galadriel understands fully that the company is good and all the members of the company come against Sauron.  Even her husband and many of the Elves of Lothlorien don’t want to accept Gimli or fear the coming of Frodo.  Betrayal is at the heart of the tale of men in the Third Age and Aragorn does not know if he can even overcome that in himself and even his efforts to save Gondor are nearly undone by the betrayal of Denethor one of the greatest men of his generation and yet susceptible to the whispering, temptation of Sauron.  In LOTR Sauron uses terror but only when his more subtle methods fail.  Evil when it uses terror is at its weakest since it rallies people to oppose that terror.  When it attacks us at our core and makes us betray those whom we should respect or protect that is when evil is at its strongest.  LOTR has a more realistic and subtle portrayal of evil then does GOT.

One Ring or Dragon to Rule Them All

All Shall Love me and Despair

Which brings us to the end of the show.  Here Daenerys essentially fully succumbs to the power of the Ring in the form of her dragons.  From the beginning, Daenerys calls the Dragons her children and she takes care of them and protects them.  Then she turns them into instruments of her will, to gain material power in the world.  After she turns them to instruments of her will she pays any price to keep them even if it costs the lives of innocent children and when people try to take them from her she becomes consumed with rage.  After losing one dragon to Cersei Daenerys attempts to kill a million people in payment for that crime and succeeds in killing many of them.  She does this for good reasons of course and when she first uses her power this way she certainly is killing evil men.  Which sounds a lot like this:

Fellowship of the Ring: Frodo has offered the Ring to Galadriel:

            “And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely!  In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen.  And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night!  Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain!  Dreadful as the Storm and the Lighting!  Stronger than the foundations of the earth.  All shall love me and despair!”

            She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark.  She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful.  Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! She was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad. 

            “I pass the test,” she said.  “I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.

It is hard to say that GOT is more realistic than LOTR when it borrows so strongly from LOTR.  But my final point for why LOTR is more realistic then GOT is that Daenerys never knew there was a test and Jon did not know why it was right to stop Daenerys before more people died.  Martin managed to depict evil but he never really got around to showing us well; something that Tolkien did very well.  When you can only show evil and you can’t really explain the good you lose any right to be called more realistic than a story that shows both in full.

What do you all think?

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  1. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    I have never seen an episode of GOT, but I read as many books as exist because my son loved them.  I found them entertaining, and I reference the struggle for the iron throne in my history classes because it’s a useful plug into pop culture and the “will to power” that dominates a lot of thinking in our age. 

    I’m not so sure I agree that there’s no appreciation of the good in Martin’s work, but I think the author’s take is still very interesting and has a lot of merit. 

    I could definitely not tell you why GOT didn’t move me like LOTR or why I would never reread the books that I’ve already consumed.   The books just felt… thinner?  Some points here articulate possible reasons why.   They certainly explain the reason I found myself skimming through a lot of the GOT chapters that weren’t necessary, whereas I have read–and reread–every word of Tolkien’s master work.  (Well, except the stanzas for all the poems.  I skim the poems now.  I admit it.)

    Thanks for an interesting analysis.  

    • #31
  2. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Brian,

    I have no idea what you think the word reality means or realistic. You are asking us to make a comparison between two fantasy stories so I don’t think using the word realistic or reality will get us anywhere. Let’s assume that the two fantasy tales are written to express a transcendent moral dimension. This might be an expression of Good triumphing over Evil or it may be nihilistic or just ambiguous in its understanding of Good and Evil.

    Let’s take the one similarity that I find most interesting in both tales, the dragon(s). In LOTR the dragon is a single superpowerful force completely motivated by Evil. The dragon is both the symbol of Evil and the force of Evil in the world. The defeat of the dragon is necessary before the rest of the forces of Evil can be defeated. In GOT the dragons appear as servants of one ambiguous character. A woman who rarely looks more than 15 years old uses the dragons as her super weapon to win victory after victory. The dragons act as her pets and personal protectors. Ultimately, she is unable to have an intimate lasting relationship with a man. With the one man who she invites into intimacy, she still cannot fully share her throne.

    To me, the difference in the stories tells us the difference in the times in which they were written. For Tolkien, the great Evil was surely the totalitarian menace of Bolshevism and Fascism. He saw the horror of one World War and surely knew that the next one was on the way. LOTR is about finding the strength to fight the explicit Evil of the totalitarian menace. For GOT and our contemporary society, everything is ambiguous. I find GOT very revealing. Now the dragons are pets as if you can make friends with Evil and then Evil will serve you. The woman who looks 15 years old is neither moral nor wise. She just has an intuitive feel for the dragons. This makes her more girl than woman. She can excise destructive power willfully but is unable to rule any other way. She is unable to see any moral sphere to life as she is unable to accept the advice of the man who she should be sharing power with.

    Finally, she is just one more victim of a society that has no moral center at all. Refusing all moral visions this society imagines that this is somehow “realistic” so OK. Of course, it is not OK and disaster is the continuous reward.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #32
  3. Brian Wolf Inactive
    Brian Wolf
    @BrianWolf

    I hope to get some answers up soon.  I want to say right now though that I appreciate your comments very much, they are rich and interesting.  You contributions have made me grateful for writing this post and I am honored that you took the time to read the huge thing. 

    Now, I would like to say that some of you are very wrong and I hope to get to explaining why soon.  :) :)

    • #33
  4. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    Amy Schley (View Comment):
    LOTR is so wonderful because it isn’t completely realistic; it gives us models to strive for instead of mirrors of our own failings.

    Good remarks all around there (too lengthy to quote though for a point by point response).

    Tolkien was asked in fan letters about Gondor’s economy – and he confessed he couldn’t say as he just did not know, and it was better to write about what he did know.  He was also asked about their religion, and again he had to demur somewhat.  The Numenorians had a religion, which the exiles carried with them (see Faramir in the secret fortress), but it was not developed further.  There are hints that the dwarves still revere their creator, but the elves had direct memories of the Valar and I suppose would therefore find no purpose in religious ritual.  It’s definitely a puzzler.

    And I agree too with many of your points about Martin drawing from actual, and very messy historical events in the creation of his stories – in that sense he is indeed more realistic about how people are so often motivated by selfish and self-destructive passions instead of nobility.  But here’s where Martin’s realism goes off the rails: he revels in the grime without ever having a coherent larger picture of things.  The grime is so often the point, with things like narrative, B and C as logical consequences of A, and so forth merely the filler in between the grime.  It’s as though Martin had all these shocking episodes and events plotted out, without any clear path to connecting them.  That’s where he misses so much in his desire to mimic history.  Like Tolkien (and this is a point I remember you personally making several times over the years), Martin does not seem to have much of a grasp of economics or politics (though more than Tolkien I would argue), just enough to sprinkle a veneer of it into his stories for an appearance of depth (“world building!”), but without any real understanding of consequences.  Such things are all just to facilitate Martin rolling in the grime.

    I’ve not watched the entire series, nor read all of the books.  But I’ve seen enough, and gleaned enough through the many many commentaries over the years, to understand that the GOT world is flawed in its conception and execution.  Martin is a skilled short story teller, but I think he fails when he gets out of that narrow focus and tries to connect multiple vignettes.

    • #34
  5. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    There is one serious quibble I have with the OP:

    It’s somewhat unfair, both to GOT and LOTR, to compare the two.  They serve different purposes as stories.  LOTR is, at its core, 2 narrative hero quests intertwined in a mythic world.  It dances on the edge of mythology, and is telling the tale of the final period of time when the fay and the mortal are joined.  The truths it aims to tell are lofty ones about mortality, good and evil, duty, and sacrifice.  The heroes in LOTR are aspirational.  In this I’d argue that LOTR does convey many truths, and good ones at that.

    GOT, by contrast, is creating a world and a series of stories where there are no unsullied heroes and everyone has mixed motivations.  He’s trying to just superimpose magic and fantastic beasts onto medieval politics and dynastic fights – essentially “What would have happened if the Plantagenets had dragons and magic, and the Scots had ice zombies?”  Except that the truths Martin aims to tell are very different and very cynical, and there’s really nothing aspirational for readers in most of the characters.  But the truths he does convey are valid in their context.  The one big lie Martin’s world conveys is its ultimate cynicism, where almost anyone noble dies.

    Tolkien creates a world that is impossibly mythic.  Martin creates a world that is impossibly grungy and irredeemable.  Neither is entirely true, and neither is entirely false.  But I will say this of Martin’s world – it’s not one I’d want any part of. 

    • #35
  6. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    I think the more coherent incorporation of the fantastical and mythical in LOTR is what makes it so realistic. Realism is created by having a world with consistent rules where actions elicit understandable and predictable consequences. Because Martin lost the thread of his story his world has greater internal inconsistencies in it cosmology. To speak nothing of the show where clearly the writers gave up on the mythic and fantastic entirely. 

    • #36
  7. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Tolkien lived through WWI. There is no ‘realism’ that GOT has to compare to the actual life experiences of the man. Martin has nothing on Tolkien. 

    LOTR comes from someone burned with real ice and fire. GOT is a post modern spectacle. 

    Maybe, to get good stories again, we need something as horrible as WWI.

    • #37
  8. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Tolkien lived through WWI. There is no ‘realism’ that GOT has to compare to the actual life experiences of the man. Martin has nothing on Tolkien.

    LOTR comes from someone burned with real ice and fire. GOT is a post modern spectacle.

    Maybe, to get good stories again, we need something as horrible as WWI.

    Bryan,

    Perhaps you are on to something here. Not that we actually want something horrible to happen. However, much good fiction is created when the reality is too painful to be directly dealt with so fiction or fantasy becomes the outlet. You might consider Shakespeare a reaction to Henry the VIII’s England now inherited by Elizabeth. With possible Civil War and the Spanish Armada, England’s survival seems a miracle. Reality is too frightening and thus escape into Shakespeare’s fantasy world becomes an outlet for the tension. Ian Fleming can’t tell anybody about his WWII assassination cloak & dagger work v. the Germans. Thus the fantasy James Bond becomes his outlet. After WWII and the tension of the Cold War Gene Roddenberry needs an outlet and Star Trek is the perfect outlet. 

    Unfortunately, when the conflict in people’s lives doesn’t really exist, as with our present crop of SJWs and their spoiled child mentality, there is little need for a fantasy world. Any fictive fantasy world generated becomes just a money making exercise or a further indulgence for the spoiled children. Rather than a creative organic whole, it starts to feel like a forced march.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #38
  9. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    James Gawron (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Tolkien lived through WWI. There is no ‘realism’ that GOT has to compare to the actual life experiences of the man. Martin has nothing on Tolkien.

    LOTR comes from someone burned with real ice and fire. GOT is a post modern spectacle.

    Maybe, to get good stories again, we need something as horrible as WWI.

    Bryan,

    Perhaps you are on to something here. Not that we actually want something horrible to happen. However, much good fiction is created when the reality is too painful to be directly dealt with so fiction or fantasy becomes the outlet. You might consider Shakespeare a reaction to Henry the VIII’s England now inherited by Elizabeth. With possible Civil War and the Spanish Armada, England’s survival seems a miracle. Reality is too frightening and thus escape into Shakespeare’s fantasy world becomes an outlet for the tension. Ian Fleming can’t tell anybody about his WWII assassination cloak & dagger work v. the Germans. Thus the fantasy James Bond becomes his outlet. After WWII and the tension of the Cold War Gene Roddenberry needs an outlet and Star Trek is the perfect outlet.

    Unfortunately, when the conflict in people’s lives doesn’t really exist, as with our present crop of SJWs and their spoiled child mentality, there is little need for a fantasy world. Any fictive fantasy world generated becomes just a money making exercise or a further indulgence for the spoiled children. Rather than a creative organic whole, it starts to feel like a forced march.

    Regards,

    Jim

    They have to make conflict up. 

     

    • #39
  10. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Tolkien lived through WWI. There is no ‘realism’ that GOT has to compare to the actual life experiences of the man. Martin has nothing on Tolkien.

    LOTR comes from someone burned with real ice and fire. GOT is a post modern spectacle.

    Maybe, to get good stories again, we need something as horrible as WWI.

    There is still plenty of horror today, to inspire authors. But I think the confluence of inspiration and ability are rare, otherwise we would be flooded in great works, and clearly we aren’t. Though we do have more books published every year than at any other time, and it isn’t like every book written by a WWI veteran is good or even competent. Those books just haven’t really survived the culling of 60 years. We know LOTR will still be published and read 20 years into the future, will this be true of Game of Thrones? The show is I think what saved the book series from obscurity by popularizing it, but final judgement on it will come down through the ages. So far I don’t really think there has been another Fantasy book that has risen to the level of LOTR, but then again I’m not sure any play has ever risen to the level of Hamlet either save maybe another written by the same hand. 

    • #40
  11. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Valiuth (View Comment):
    I’m not sure any play has ever risen to the level of Hamlet either save maybe another written by the same hand. 

    I’ve always preferred Macbeth, but… yeah… Same dude.  :) . 

    • #41
  12. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Brian Wolf (View Comment):

    I hope to get some answers up soon. I want to say right now though that I appreciate your comments very much, they are rich and interesting. You contributions have made me grateful for writing this post and I am honored that you took the time to read the huge thing.

    Now, I would like to say that some of you are very wrong and I hope to get to explaining why soon. :) :)

    Bring it! 

    …I mean, I look forward to your erudition. 

    • #42
  13. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Valiuth (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Tolkien lived through WWI. There is no ‘realism’ that GOT has to compare to the actual life experiences of the man. Martin has nothing on Tolkien.

    LOTR comes from someone burned with real ice and fire. GOT is a post modern spectacle.

    Maybe, to get good stories again, we need something as horrible as WWI.

    There is still plenty of horror today, to inspire authors. But I think the confluence of inspiration and ability are rare, otherwise we would be flooded in great works, and clearly we aren’t. Though we do have more books published every year than at any other time, and it isn’t like every book written by a WWI veteran is good or even competent. Those books just haven’t really survived the culling of 60 years. We know LOTR will still be published and read 20 years into the future, will this be true of Game of Thrones? The show is I think what saved the book series from obscurity by popularizing it, but final judgement on it will come down through the ages. So far I don’t really think there has been another Fantasy book that has risen to the level of LOTR, but then again I’m not sure any play has ever risen to the level of Hamlet either save maybe another written by the same hand.

    Some of the Greek plays can compete. 

    There’s classic fantasy, too, but I think Tolkein’s work bridged the gap of children’s books to adult fantasy.

    • #43
  14. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    Valiuth (View Comment):
    So far I don’t really think there has been another Fantasy book that has risen to the level of LOTR, but then again I’m not sure any play has ever risen to the level of Hamlet either save maybe another written by the same hand. 

    That’s an interesting thing to ponder.  I think a huge part of Tolkien’s success is that he was such a stand out, basically creating and popularizing a genre that had been previously mostly the work of niche authors.  But would another Tolkien-level writer today stand out in the same way, or would that writer be drowned just by the sheer volume of available work seeking our attention?

    I love Jack Vance, for instance, and consider him, as a writer, a better writer than Tolkien (not necessarily a better story teller, however).  But I found him only by accident.  

    Other great story tellers are now out of print and hard to find, and not for any lack of quality, but just for lack of attention.  I heard a current speculative fiction writer complain that her works were competing against a bunch of dead writers, preventing new authors from gaining similar attention – this may be sour grapes on her part of course, but it could also be that her works really are drowning in obscurity.

    Dickens is the best-remembered Victorian, but I’d argue others should be better remembered than he.

    The sort of immortality of Tolkien or Shakespeare or Dickens is, I think, partly due to luck.

    • #44
  15. Amy Schley Coolidge
    Amy Schley
    @AmySchley

    I guess I would sum up the differences between the two universes this way: 

    Game of Thrones is the more realistic story because the palace has a garderobe.

    Lord of the Rings is the better story because a protagonist doesn’t shoot his father while the father is using the garderobe.

    Realism is not the be all end all of quality. 

    I would also note that while I’m defending Game of Thrones here, I’m much more interested in the world and the secondary and tertiary characters than the protagonists. Characters like Olenna, Little finger, Brienne, Margery, the College of Maesters, the Bank of Bravos, and the like I find far more intriguing than the characters the books and show spend time with. Same with “Man in the High Castle,” in fact. 

    • #45
  16. Hank Rhody, Drunk on Power Contributor
    Hank Rhody, Drunk on Power
    @HankRhody

    SkipSul (View Comment):
    I love Jack Vance, for instance, and consider him, as a writer, a better writer than Tolkien (not necessarily a better story teller, however). But I found him only by accident.

    I dislike Jack Vance. Again, he doesn’t have heroes, he has protagonists. At least of the stuff of his I’ve read.

    • #46
  17. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    Hank Rhody, Drunk on Power (View Comment):

    SkipSul (View Comment):
    I love Jack Vance, for instance, and consider him, as a writer, a better writer than Tolkien (not necessarily a better story teller, however). But I found him only by accident.

    I dislike Jack Vance. Again, he doesn’t have heroes, he has protagonists. At least of the stuff of his I’ve read.

    I get that he doesn’t have heroes, or perhaps he has scoundrel anti-heroes, but many of his tales are not really about hero quests but about just getting by in a world, or responding to exceptional circumstances.  Some of his short stories in his Dying Earth tales, for instance, may not be traditional heroes, but they end up doing heroic things.  In any case, there’s still an order with Vance, and still a moral hierarchy to things – the true villains are always the losers in the end.

    • #47
  18. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Rose G. and Galadriel are living moms, right?

    For a moment, I wasn’t sure who you meant by Rose G, as I think of her as Rosie Cotton, not by her married name Gamgee.  Yes, she is a living mother, but I think that the statement in the OP was “It is hard to name any character’s mother that we know is alive in Tolkien’s tale.”  The children of Rosie and Sam are mentioned briefly in the epilogue, but are insignificant characters.

    Galadriel is a living mother, but her daughter Celebrian is dead, so again, this is not an example of a significant character with a living mother.

    I have a vague impression that Merry and Pippen have living mothers, though almost no one else does.

    • #48
  19. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Rose G. and Galadriel are living moms, right?

    For a moment, I wasn’t sure who you meant by Rose G, as I think of her as Rosie Cotton, not by her married name Gamgee. Yes, she is a living mother, but I think that the statement in the OP was “It is hard to name any character’s mother that we know is alive in Tolkien’s tale.” The children of Rosie and Sam are mentioned briefly in the epilogue, but are insignificant characters.

    Galadriel is a living mother, but her daughter Celebrian is dead, so again, this is not an example of a significant character with a living mother.

    I have a vague impression that Merry and Pippen have living mothers, though almost no one else does.

    How much to mothers really feature in epic tales of travel from home other than in the homesick musings of hearth and home?

    And really, even there, how many grown men imagine their mothers at that hearth rather than the warm embrace of a wife?

    GOT featured more youth and young girls in the story, and girls and children far from home would long for a mother’s comforting embrace.

    • #49
  20. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Tolkien lived through WWI. There is no ‘realism’ that GOT has to compare to the actual life experiences of the man. Martin has nothing on Tolkien.

    LOTR comes from someone burned with real ice and fire. GOT is a post modern spectacle.

    Maybe, to get good stories again, we need something as horrible as WWI.

    Bryan, I don’d understand your characterization of GoT as post-modern.  Post-modernism is characterized by moral relativism, deconstructionism, and cynical skepticism.  I did not see these characteristics as dominant in GoT.

    To the contrary, the story plainly demonstrates the existence of good and evil.  Lannisters evil.  Starks good.  There are complexities, but the overarching theme is that the honorable Starks prevail, despite dreadful setbacks.  The worst of the bad guys die. 

    Even the Mother of Dragons, who is expected to be a hero, turns to evil and wishes to conquer and dominate the entire world, supposedly for their own good.  Never mind that she is apparently going to slaughter half the population to do so.  It will all be great when the Mother of Dragons will be in charge, because she’s the True Queen.  Except when it turns out that she’s not the True Queen, she still wants to be in charge and will kill everyone in her way.

    This is portrayed as megalomania in the end, and she is taken out, rightfully.  Again, this shows the victory of good over evil, hardly a demonstration of post-modernism.

    I like the complexity of GoT compared to LotR, because characters have mixed motives and sometimes change sides.  This particular aspect of GoT is more realistic.  I know that this theme is not entirely absent in LotR, as demonstrated by the redemption of Theoden, the temptation of Boromir, and the madness of Denethor.

    I think that your criticisms about excessive nudity and borderline pornography are valid.  I find these largely unnecessary to the story, and generally ignore them.  

    • #50
  21. Brian Wolf Inactive
    Brian Wolf
    @BrianWolf

    Amy Schley (View Comment):

    I suppose the first question is what do we mean by realistic? I define “realistic” as

    • characters behaving with normal human behaviors
    • caused by normal motivations
    • in a world that is as complex as the real world
    • where politics, economics, and religion all intersect.

    These are a little different then my criteria then the ones I wrote out the OP but that because I was just taking from the internet the basic comparisons people were making to declare.  But I like your selections, and I will work with them.  Forgive me with a 500 word limit this will take more than one post.

    Characters behaving with normal human behaviors I think Tolkien and Martin both meet that challenge though we have to account for the differences in their moral universe.  Martian was big on describing religious ritual, a general type of religion without describing morality very well.  We don’t really know anything about the morality of the Stark’s religion except that it matched up pretty well with the morality of the Seven, though it seems as if only the Starks cared about that morality not even the other Northmen seem to adhere to same morality as Ned Stark.  I think men around something like LOTR Elves would step up and act in a more noble fashion at least among their own people.  We know the men of Rohan abused the Dunlanders which is why they joined Saruman and men of Gondor and Rohan hunted the men of the Forest for sport in the past.  So not all men of the “good” West were all that good. 

    This really only holds for the main characters though.  The Lannisters soldiers still just seem like little Robots that have now realistic motivation for dying in their tens of thousands so Tywin can be the most powerful man in the Realm.  What did they get out of it?  Tywin could not have been paying them all.    While in Tolkien the motivations of the common soldiers of the West are easy to understand and are realistic.  

    Amy Schley (View Comment):
    As for the specific example above showing how stupid Ned, Robert, and Jon Arryn were in letting the Lannisters consolidate power in the capital, I would suggest studying the history that Martin cribbed, because such things clearly happened. Robert Baratheon is heavily based on Edward IV, who yes indeed spent much of his reign drinking, feasting, and whoring while his wife Elizabeth Woodville packed the court with courtiers who were more loyal to her family than to the throne.

    Well lets look at it then.  England had one standing army during the reign of Edward IV, he entrusted that army, the garrison in Calais, to his father’s right hand man and the man Edward gained the throne with the Earl of Warwick.  Warwick was such a family friend and such a brother arms Edward had every reason to trust him and he did.  Yet Warwick eventually betrayed Edward.

    • #51
  22. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    I haven’t yet commented on the OP.  I disagree with the resolution.  I think that overall, GoT is more “realistic” than LotR, using the criteria set forth in the OP.

    The principal reason for my opinion is the strength of the motivations of “bad guys” in GoT, and the weakness of the motivations of the “bad guys” in LotR.  Sure, both Sauron and the Night King are essentially avatars of fundamental evil and death.  But almost no one serves the Night King (Craster being the only exception that I can recall).

    Sauron has huge numbers of servants, with little or no explanation as to why they would side with him.  They’re largely compelled by the mystic power of Sauron and the Nazgul.  Many of them are orcs, with a few trolls added for good measure, and they’re conceptualized as wholly evil by nature.  The motivations of the Haradrim and the Corsairs and the men of Rhun are never explored.

    The putative good guys who yield to Sauron generally do so out of despair — Saruman and Denethor.  Theoden is initially failing in his duty because he is bewitched, not because he is old or careless or complacent.  Wormtongue at least has a plausible motive, but it’s pretty shallow — he hopes to rule Rohan and wed Eowyn.

    I find the dynastic struggles in GoT to be much more complex and realistic.

    • #52
  23. Hank Rhody, Drunk on Power Contributor
    Hank Rhody, Drunk on Power
    @HankRhody

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    To the contrary, the story plainly demonstrates the existence of good and evil. Lannisters evil. Starks good. There are complexities, but the overarching theme is that the honorable Starks prevail, despite dreadful setbacks. The worst of the bad guys die. 

    Judging by the TV show, maybe. Judging by the books this is wrong. The Starks get murdered bit by bit as they display noble characteristics and are cut down by people exerting a simple will to power.

    • #53
  24. Brian Wolf Inactive
    Brian Wolf
    @BrianWolf

    Amy Schley (View Comment):
    As for the specific example above showing how stupid Ned, Robert, and Jon Arryn were in letting the Lannisters consolidate power in the capital, I would suggest studying the history that Martin cribbed

    To continue from 50.  So Warwick’s betrayal makes sense in that he was in a position to earn a lot of trust and then out of pride and ambition used that trust to betray Edward.  That would have been a realistic way to have both Robert and Ned betrayed in the books too.  Instead of Jon Arryn being murdered he decides that Ned and Robert has taken too much credit for the victory and Jon decides to seize power for himself and the Lannisters.  That is not what happens though at all and none of these military men even care enough to make sure they control the only standing army in the Capital?  They are either too stupid to win wars or this was just a plotting device that made no sense.

    On to the Woodvilles even if I were to accept your Lancasterian and Richardian slanders against the Woodvilles the fact of the matter is that Edward loved Elizabeth and enjoyed his in-laws.  There is no actual evidence they were not loyal to Edward and his children and they were not any greedier than any other noble in similar position would have been.  Most of the stories about how the Rivers and the rest of Woodvilles were uncontrolled, greedy monsters came after Richard seized power in an unprovoked attack on his Nephews seizing them by force from the stunned Woodvilles.  Putting that to the side if the Woodvilles were like the Lannisters Edward let them gain power because he liked them.  Robert hated Cersei and the Lannisters.  What King and what Hand of the King does not secure the main military force in the capital and then further allows soldiers loyal to people you hate grow strong and not bring in any loyal men?

    If Cersei had pretended to like Robert and Robert had been besotted with her then things make sense, why wouldn’t Robert let the woman he loves gather more men and power around her?  The fact that Robert hated her makes most of the situation in Kings Landing that leads to Ned’s fall unbelievable.

    The Woodvilles then joined with the Tudor’s because Richard had murdered the leading men of their family and the true heir’s to the throne for no reason.  Stannis was just in attacking Kings Landing and did so for good reason, Richard III had no good reason to do what he did except he did not like what the future looked like with a Nephew who loved his family and was not very close to his uncle was sitting on the throne.

    Just as an aside there is good reason to believe that Edward was a good king, even though he over indulged in middle age with food and drink.

    • #54
  25. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Hank Rhody, Drunk on Power (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    To the contrary, the story plainly demonstrates the existence of good and evil. Lannisters evil. Starks good. There are complexities, but the overarching theme is that the honorable Starks prevail, despite dreadful setbacks. The worst of the bad guys die.

    Judging by the TV show, maybe. Judging by the books this is wrong. The Starks get murdered bit by bit as they display noble characteristics and are cut down by people exerting a simple will to power.

    The books aren’t done.  The Stark victory only became apparent at the very end of the series.

    • #55
  26. Hank Rhody, Drunk on Power Contributor
    Hank Rhody, Drunk on Power
    @HankRhody

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Hank Rhody, Drunk on Power (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    To the contrary, the story plainly demonstrates the existence of good and evil. Lannisters evil. Starks good. There are complexities, but the overarching theme is that the honorable Starks prevail, despite dreadful setbacks. The worst of the bad guys die.

    Judging by the TV show, maybe. Judging by the books this is wrong. The Starks get murdered bit by bit as they display noble characteristics and are cut down by people exerting a simple will to power.

    The books aren’t done. The Stark victory only became apparent at the very end of the series.

    Where everyone says the plot went to pot?

    • #56
  27. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    The Stark victory only became apparent at the very end of the series.

    Yeah, when Tony got the Infinity Stones.

    • #57
  28. Brian Wolf Inactive
    Brian Wolf
    @BrianWolf

    Amy Schley (View Comment):
    How about economics? Lord Petyr Baelish and the Iron Bank of Bravos understood something I’ve never seen in any other fantasy universe: how to create wealth. Unlike Tolkien’s dwarves or Lannisters or Dothraki, they make money not by digging it out of the ground or stealing it from others but through banking, commerce, and infrastructure. Yes, Aragorn and Faramir will be great and noble king and steward, but will they build roads and ports and grain mills and sewers? Those just aren’t heroic deeds in the great legendary tradition Tolkien wanted to join, so he makes no mention of such pedestrian things.

    This is an interesting point.  Here I will contend that Tolkien was wise to avoid talking about economics as much as he could, it is a weakness of his for instance how did Frodo’s father make a living, where did Bilbo get money for all that food and his household before striking it rich on adventure?  He had little idea how people got money and did not make much effort to try and explain how trade worked or how goods moved about.  But here I think Tolkien’s desire to avoid the topic served him well.

    Martin brings up economics but his economics are a mess.  Everyone builds ships that sail across oceans for thousands of miles and make round trips between continents on a very routine basis.  The Iron Islands alone can build fleets of hundreds or even thousands of ships, the Reach has a huge number of ships and Essos has many fleets as well all of which can sail from what would be round trips from England to China on a routine basis.  Yet when Jamie travels north to take care of Riverrun he has to deal with a 1200 year old feud between two houses over the fate of some beehives and mill.  1200 years!

    No feud goes on for 1200 years no family survives for 1200 years but in a world of international finance, trans continental trade and markets of filled with millions of people we have two noble houses killing hundreds or even thousands of men over beehives?  Martin could not decide if his story took place in the dark ages, the classic period, the high middle ages or the Renaissance.    The beehive story makes sense if we are in the early middle ages and we are talking about armies of a 200 hundred men at most.  Beehives were valuable but a 1200 year feud with thousands of combatants? Ents are more realistic.

    • #58
  29. Brian Wolf Inactive
    Brian Wolf
    @BrianWolf

    Amy Schley (View Comment):
    In Middle-Earth, there are kings and smallfolk; in Westeros, there are kings, great lords who rule over great regions, minor lords who are their bannermen, sworn knights, and then the commoners. Essos has city-states that are slavers; city-states that are great merchants; city-states that are great bankers and mercenaries. Again, the complexity reflects the complexity of real life.

    I admit that Martian swung for he fences on the diversity of cultures and depth of detail he tried to put into the political make up of Westeros especially and Tolkien had much more modest ambitions and he kept a lot of his world wilderness.

    But Martin doesn’t know culture or human nature very well.  There are minor instances of this like the Starks ruling for 8,000 years, what family rules for 8,000 years.  The Bragrationi in Georgia sort of managed to rule Georgia for a 1,000 years but even that length of time rare but 8,000!  Ok so let’s leave that to one side.  Take the Iron Islands.  They were conquered 300 years ago and have not been able to raid and steal since then.  What did they do for money?  They built enormously expensive ships that are expensive to build, expensive to maintain and expansive to operate and they had to rebuild everything from the war they had lost just 15 years ago.  Where did their money come from?  How did they acquire it?  Were there no merchants among them?  Did they have any natural resources to exploit?  We have no explanation of how they maintained their raiding culture without starting wars for Essos and if they did not raid where did the resources come from for the fleets?

    How does the North survive 10 to 15 year winters, even 8 or 9 year winters, producing nothing?  They must bring food in for further south but what do they trade for it during nearly a decade of inactivity?  What did the North have that they could share with rest of Westeros?  How did the Starks make their money?

    The Iron Bank is also strange it is powerful enough to change the fate of Kingdoms and it seems to have endless reserves of money but how did they do that?  All the instances of the Bank making money was financing Robert’s spending habits, and then offering even more loans to fight wars to pay off those debts.  If Westeros was so prosperous the Iron Bank thought they should spend so much money and they would get their money back how was Robert out spending his tax revenue?  He just was I guess. 

     

    • #59
  30. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Hank Rhody, Drunk on Power (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Hank Rhody, Drunk on Power (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    To the contrary, the story plainly demonstrates the existence of good and evil. Lannisters evil. Starks good. There are complexities, but the overarching theme is that the honorable Starks prevail, despite dreadful setbacks. The worst of the bad guys die.

    Judging by the TV show, maybe. Judging by the books this is wrong. The Starks get murdered bit by bit as they display noble characteristics and are cut down by people exerting a simple will to power.

    The books aren’t done. The Stark victory only became apparent at the very end of the series.

    Where everyone says the plot went to pot?

    My only major complaint is placing Bran on the throne rather than Jon.  Either way, you effectively have a Stark in charge and the Starks are triumphant.  Jon — I mean Egg — is technically a Targaryen, but his mother was a Stark, he was raised a Stark, and he holds to Stark values.

    • #60
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