>Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?
Now that the dust has settled is Sup Forums willing to admit that he was right?
> Now the guy's got the Iron Bank as a partner. > Any problems, he goes to Iron Bank. > Trouble with the Lannisters? > He can go to the Iron Bank. > Trouble with the Kingsguard, Old Gods, the Mountain, he can call the Iron Bank. > But now the guy's gotta come up with the Iron Bank's interest every week, no matter what. > > Campaign bad? > Fuck you, pay me. > Oh, you had a fire? >Fuck you, pay me. > Place got hit by 20 good men, huh? > Fuck you, pay me.
Daniel Adams
>But what about Faramir's dick? What if it was too small to satisfy Eowyn and she began an illicit sexual afair with Eomer? These are the questions Tolkien doesn't address and that I wanted to answer because real life isn't a fairytale.
Grayson Baker
>while many like you demand maps, others wish for geological indications rather than places; many want Elvish grammars, phonologies, and specimens; some want metrics and prosodies.... Musicians want tunes, and musical notation; archaeologists want ceramics and metallurgy; botanists want a more accurate description of the mallorn, of elanor, niphredil, alfirin, mallos, and symbelmynë; historians want more details about the social and political structure of Gondor; general enquirers want information about the Wainriders, the Harad, Dwarvish origins, the Dead Men, the Beornings, and the missing two wizards (out of five). I didn't believe it at first either, but I looked it up and it is 100% true.
Gavin Watson
shit like this shows just how little he understands tolkien and his work
Aiden Miller
What an annoying fag
Nolan Rivera
Okay so he wants a realistic fantasy world? yet he puts in le feminist characters who never lose.
Isaiah Brooks
I swear most anons are more obsessed with Tolkien than Tumblr is with Harry Potter.
Joshua King
fuck that lazy train conductor, he's worse than Tolkien by miles
Aiden Jenkins
i get what he's trying to say, but fuck me it both looks and sounds retarded
who the fuck cares about a tax policy, why would a standing army matter after the story was over, its a war adventure story, who the fuck wants a book about a famine, and on top of that, the orcs are literally all rape babys that'll kill themselves through infighting, and didnt raise the retarded fuckers in cradles
fuck, he doesnt even write this shit, because no one cares. how many chapters are devoted to what the local chef cooks for King Dinkleberry because thats the important questions that didnt get answered
Aiden Diaz
"haha but what if they died?"
~ GRRM
Jacob Adams
That's fine. Tolkien wrote something that made us question the frailty of man, yet presented it in a way that made hope always present and goodness achievable. His book is a literary masterpiece, opposed to Rowling's masturbatory fantasy.
Ryder Hughes
>opposed to Rowling's masturbatory fantasy.
This. Even as an 11 year old kid I got the sense that harry potter was written in a way to make you WANT to be a wizard, it's tailored to prick at your wishful thinking and causes you to sit and sigh and fantasize about hand-waving all your problems away.
Caleb Flores
t. never been to Tumblr we're discuss literary merits of both authors not whether or not we are hobbits or dwarves.
James Cox
AMERICAN TOLKIEN
Bentley Morales
>baby orcs
Kayden Foster
>Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. No shit, its almost like the fisher king, and the arthurian grail quest informed the mythology tolkien established.
Alexander Perez
don't want to derail this thread but is there a reason why boys tend to grow out of Harry Potter when they hit puberty but women keep enjoying it into young adulthood and even beyond?
Mason Turner
>What was Aragorn’s tax policy?
gets me everytime
Mason Wood
>women keep enjoying it
tumblrinas arent real women
Angel Gonzalez
It's intuitively obvious that women have pleb taste.
Elijah Barnes
The neckbeard element on Sup Forums aren't real men. You were made for each other!
Owen Nguyen
women are less likely to get their shit taste judged by other women, men judge each other on their film/music/tv/game likes all the time
Parker Hernandez
how do i get a qt tumblr gf
Matthew Richardson
Yeah, pretty much. I think the best approach by another fantasy writer was "Epic Pooh" by Michael Moorcock though.
John White
>yet he puts in le feminist characters who never lose. That only exists in the show.
Isaiah Gomez
good point, I've always thought LOTR needed more about tax policy
Samuel Parker
In such situations I ask myself "what would Eric do?".
Eli Ross
Women as creatures are inherently selfish and vain. Harry potter is a fantasy about making whatever you want come true with a flick of the wrist.
Flying around, conjuring food, wearing comfy robes, using potions to fix all health issues and becoming beautiful. Using a tiny ritual to get whatever you want is appealing to the ego of the female mind, hence why wiccanism is so popular among women.
Carson Mitchell
does he have to wear the fedora though?
Nolan Gomez
Girls generally enjoy school more. Fiction about a school = girl friendly. Rowling is also a woman, so writing in the somewhat female perspective could resonate more with women. Girls need escapism too, even if it's schlock compared even to it's genre fiction peers.
Juan Edwards
who, brienne? biter tore a large chunk of her face off with his teeth and jaime when last he saw her thought she'd aged shockingly
Andrew Powell
is that supposed to be shocking, and not what 99% of teenage boys are thinking?
Juan Phillips
O R C C R A D L E S R C
C R A D L E S
Elijah Hill
Yeah, that's our thing. Our thing that we do.
Isaac Rodriguez
You've gotta feel sympathy for the guy. Tiny Colorado town. If you do anything embarrassing from 7th grade on in front of your school, you can forget about ever getting laid until college. You did have a good enough GPA to get into college, right?
Oliver Rivera
In the books I get the feeling he's planting the seeds of Daenerys becoming another Mad King. Asha gets fuck-all from the kingsmoot and ends up captured. Sansa is a retard who's only alive and un-raped because of powerful men protecting her. I like the books, it's a shame how things turned out.
Ayden Brooks
No idea, Eric's pretty shitty on me for posting it and refuses to communicate.
Jaxon Diaz
...
Julian Bell
>tax policy isn't there!! >when his shitty books have barely any description about government aside from what the nobles do to fuck over one another
Elijah Sanchez
Because the HP books had a smorgasbord of attractive males that young girls can fantasise and drool over (Sirius, James, Draco, Tom, Cedric) but there was precisely zero females for boys.
Landon Young
her cunt became the world
Daniel Campbell
>he's never heard of Princess Nymeria
Nathan Lee
Give Tumblr pusy
Evan Howard
They do have some weird fascination with one of the dullest franchises in history. Seriously each episode following the boy wizard and his pals from Hogwarts Academy as they fight assorted villains has been indistinguishable from the others. Aside from the gloomy imagery, the series’ only consistency has been its lack of excitement and ineffective use of special effects, all to make magic unmagical, to make action seem inert.
Perhaps the die was cast when Rowling vetoed the idea of Spielberg directing the series; she made sure the series would never be mistaken for a work of art that meant anything to anybody?just ridiculously profitable cross-promotion for her books. The Harry Potter series might be anti-Christian (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-James Bond series in its refusal of wonder, beauty and excitement. No one wants to face that fact. Now, thankfully, they no longer have to.
>a-at least the books were good though "No!" The writing is dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs."
I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing. Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.
Joseph Watson
im sure george has many paragraphs with more words and no swearing. Very suspecting that that was picked to make him look bad
Aiden Wood
This. Tolkien wrote about the most pivotal period of time on middle earth. The end of the age of elves and beginning of the age of man. When the ring of power is rediscovered and destroyed. When the biggest bad threatens the land. When the heir to Gondor takes his place on the throne. Martin meanders for 7 books without purpose. You could start the story at any point and have no difference
Jason Roberts
>Atlas Shrugged and Ulysses outside of shit-tier your list is wrong
Charles Roberts
that's also the reason harry ended up with bland characterless ginny, so that girls could self-insert
girls irl would have hated hermione for being smarter than them, just like in the book, so she couldn't end up with him
Ryder Jackson
Then why is slice of life high school anime so popular amongst young men?
Justin Howard
>gatsby >good
It's boring. The writing is boring, the setting is boring, the time period is boring. Fuck that book.
Parker Williams
>friend has an icebreaker for freshman at her dorm >speed-dating style, about 45 secs talking to someone before roating >she comments on a girl's Deathy Hallows tattoo >girl tells my friend that she is into shipping Harry Potter and Voldemort romantically as father/son >friend tells me about it and we laugh while googling to see if it exists or if that girl was just fucking around >5 daddy dom Harry/Voldemort fics on a03 WEW E W
Charles Bennett
I didn't like the books as a kid either. I mean, magic wands, flying on brooms and shit? It all sounded very lazy, I'm pretty sure I played video games with more interesting worlds at that point
Jaxson Bell
Yes, exactly.
Oliver Long
>Ulysses >Shit-tier Why don't you go reread Eragon? It's probably more your speed.
Hunter Wright
Writing is hard- George RR Martin, 2017
Robert Evans
That's not a fedora.
Thomas Allen
this copy-pasta always gets posted.
Jacob Robinson
I'll never get why this one quote triggers /lit/ so hard. Nothing George says is explicitly wrong. Yes, we all know how Tolkien was constructing his mythos and what he was basing it off of. But all you fagots miss the entire context of the question the interviewer asked:
The whole question was about realism in high-fantasy and the line between the fantastic and the grounded. That's the whole point of the fucking quote. George compares his approach and why that works for him when directly compared (as he often is now) to Tolkien.
Do you kids really think he just brought up Aragorn's tax policy out of nowhere?
Evan Kelly
>What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Probably very fair, but also very likely it was delegated to his stewards/financial aids.
>Did he maintain a standing army Probably for awhile after the last book. I mean, they already had plenty of fighting men ready to go, so why put them back to their normal lives while plenty of orcs and what not roam middle earth? Wait until that shit dies down, then let them go about their buisness.
>flood and famine Wait until it all blows over I guess. Not much else to do.
>orcs kill them until they stop messing with his kingdom. If they hole up in some deep dark place, then who cares? If you decide to start mining someplace, then deal with them then.
This is all easy enough to answer if he bother to put your imagination to work. Clearly GRRM has no imagination and needs everything blatantly shoved in his face; he probably loved the Hobbit movies.
Kayden Carter
I sincerely hope he dies and all the faggot Asoiaf kiddies get cucked.
Evan Brooks
Yeah but George acts like he has a leg to stand on when his own version of 'realism' in fiction is dude death of main characters and royal plots lmao. Anything more than that is debatable
Parker Myers
>I want someone to die and all of his fans to get cucked because he writes something I don't like. >t. autism.
Mason Ortiz
Invisible man anywhere other than bottom tier invalidates this list
Jacob Stewart
Wait, I don't remember much, but I remember a scene where they're "creating" orcs in a vat or something.
There aren't baby orcs, are there? They certaintly aren't kept in cradles.
Caleb Nelson
You are just projecting though and oversimplifying the themes of his own books.
Luis Wilson
tolkien was a shameless reactionary who ignored most of the important societal questions
Lucas Roberts
>Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles? did baby orcs exist? I thought orcs were created from captured and mutated elves
Logan Allen
The themes in ASoIaF aren't really complex. Just vague.
David Bell
They aren't super simple either. There is some level of depth to them, as much as you want to pretend otherwise for the memes.
Christopher Reyes
Why has nobody asked the obvious yet? Why didn't he do it when he had the chance?
Adrian Evans
Holy fuck. Now I know why I never read this shit.
Gavin Wilson
Poor little every kid from every small town ever. Better kill people :^)
Alexander White
If I recall correctly, orcs are brutally tortured elves. So I take it Sauron just went on a conquering spree in his youth, took over a shit ton of elven kingdoms and raped them into orcdom.
Jackson Bailey
>t. Cockgobbling GoT fan I'm going to laugh soo hard when reality finally hits you cucks
Matthew Brown
Fat retarded scat fetishist with 4 first names is a national treasure. Only in Murrica
Lincoln Powell
>HAHA WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU? YOU LIKE A THING I DON'T? WHAT A #C U C K!
Jose Lee
Debatable, but I'd like to see an example of what you deem a complex theme within his books. As far as the world and politics of asoiaf are concerned, they are a gross oversimplification of the medieval/rennaisance period.
Juan Perez
post the one where he imitates a horn by writing "HAROOOOOOOOO"
Hudson Williams
>asoiaf >themes
there aren't any
it's essentially a glorified telenovela in a "fantasy" setting underpinned by an extremely poor understanding of feudalism
Kayden Wilson
Yeah I have no idea why they're so bootyblasted over the quote, it's a reasonable response to the question.
Kayden Stewart
Hermione, Luna, Bellatrix, Tonks, Ginny. Assuming we are referring to books here.
Nathaniel Adams
You're only proving my point retard. , I'm sure germ will be able to finish not 1 but 2 books before his fatass heart explodes. Your asspain is embarrassing you autistic fuck
Josiah Robinson
>As far as the world and politics of asoiaf are concerned, they are a gross oversimplification of the medieval/renaissance period. It's not supposed to be a direct analogy to the medieval/rennaisance period, are we talking about the books or show? I agree with you that the show glosses over the political and social structures of the world in the books but you are daft as all fuck if you think George doesn't go into detail about the complex mechanics of Westerosi politics. That's been the singular thing these books have been praised for since the 90s...
You are just being a contrarian because hating on ASOIAF is the recurring memespeak over on /lit/.
Adam Reyes
>an extremely poor understanding of feudalism literally give one example.
Christopher Torres
Not sure here, but Sauramons orcs are definitely dug up from the ground, and Sarons too probably. But then there are mountain orcs that seem to be self sustaining. It would make sense that there may be orc reproduction. Afterall, life uh, finds a way.
Jonathan Kelly
Come on now the tv show is shit, but the books have war theme, doomed love and sacrifice themes etc
Isaac Nelson
To be fair, the Orcs are the weakest part of LoTR. Other than their vague nature that was never really explored (corrupted elves sounds stupid) they were created to lack of humanity whatsoever, to make the protagonists that slaughter thousands of them avoid any moral issue.
Nolan Sanders
Buddy, the only one who appears assmad as all shit, is you. Relax already. Let people enjoy what they do.
Andrew King
Luna was my waifu.
Evan Turner
maybe its because he's typed 5 400000 word novels on an 1980's DOS word processor using only one finger. It was bad enough that the first book had 8 separate narrators, the last one has 18. He cant remember whats happened so far since he wrote the first one 20 years ago. He doesn't know where he is going, just blabbering on endlessly; the next book in the series has been described as 'unpublishable due to it's length', and its not even finished.
That's why it just reads like a bunch of stuff that happened.
Lucas Rogers
>>HAHA WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU? YOU LIKE A THING I DON'T? WHAT A #C U C K! >wtf buddy I'm not mad
K.
Bentley Foster
I love how this triggered the LOTR kiddies
Chase Evans
I was literally greentexting how autistic you have sounded, friendo.
Joshua Ross
the continent the size of North America being ruled by a single feudal ruler