At the end of the day, will you admit that he managed to improve on Tolkien's formula...

At the end of the day, will you admit that he managed to improve on Tolkien's formula? GoT was a more easily adaptable series than LotR ever was. I say this as an unabashed LotR fanboy.

GoT only good to people who never read a fantasy novel in their life. GoT is a generic cliche piles of shit.

Real answer: I don't think they're comparable. I also don't really know what you mean by Tolkien's "formula".

"Ah, ha ha, *munch, munch* ol' J.R.R., didn't, ah, see you come in! -burp- No please, please, [smack] sit down, sit down, there' something we, (pant) need to talk about. *farts* Heavens excuse me, oh ho! Well getting down to 'brass tacks' - or brass tax, I might say SNORT! - yes, well I was sitting, counting the money coming in from, slurp, my show - terribly taxing ah yes? - when the thought occurred me, watching that money from my award-winning show... [belch] from my, (siiippp) award, award, awar... sorry, I lost my breath, award-winning books, that I [chews] that I can't seem to recall you mentioning [more chewing] anything about Gondor's *blows nose* taxation policy. Surely I must have -releases one long wet smelly fart - missed it while glancing through the pages (cough). You did [scratches ballsack] say something about it, right? Sales tax? (sweats) Value-added tax? *licks lips* Don't just sta - oh my my heart - stand there my man, out with it! Surely the, the thought has crossed your mind?! -chuckles until accidental urination-"

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 Manichean 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, craven, 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.

>Tolkien's formula
Wait what? The fuck is this now?

Don't bother. This is one of those bait threads where the OP will never respond.

>Muh deep fantasy
You're a pleb, no matter how you spin it.

> deep fantasy
Yeah because that is what I said you dumb cunt.

Did you read the books? His books are the template for any fantasy adventure.

OP should have worded his post better. That's not the same thing as a formula.

>template and formula aren't the same thing

The second dumbest post I've seen on Sup Forums today

No they aren't at all. Tell me what you think Tolkien's supposed formula is.

ASoIaF manages to be even more generic than LotR despite the latter creating the entire genre and copied endlessly. It's literally just a medieval world with a few common fantasy tropes like dragons and undead thrown in. There is even a 'chosen one' subplot which is the worst fantasy cliche of all.

yeah i've read the books. All of them several times over. And?

I think you don't understand the meaning of the words you're using. You're talking about archetypes. There is no Tolkien
formula nor template. I mean like what is the template of the Silmarillion? the old testament? that's the depth of your analysis mmm?

Tolkien's formula is a vaguely medieval world populated by dwarfs, elves, trolls; an evil lord out to enslave the good creatures; and, almost always, and magical object that will let him do it, if the hero doesn’t find or control it first

What's it like being so fat and rich?

If anything, GRRM went completely against this "formula", at least in early books. Also literally no one has topped Tolkien in terms of depth, detail and originality when it comes to the genre of fantasy.

I don't know if I'd count that as a formula since it's just the basic plot of LotR. Since Tolkien only truly completed two stories, it's hard to describe his writing as formulaic. That's why I think there's a distinction between formula and creating a template.

>She was sopping wet when he entered her. “Damn you,” she said. “Damn you damn you damn you.” He sucked her nipples till she cried out half in pain and half in pleasure. Her cunt became the world.
>"He found a line and pulled on it, fighting toward the hatch to get himself below out of the storm, but a gust of wind knocked his feet from under him and a second slammed him into the rail and there he clung. Rain lashed at his face, blinding him. His mouth was full of blood again. The ship groaned and growled beneath him like a constipated fat man straining to shit."
>Sunset found her squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up she was shitting brown water. The more she drank, the more she shat, but the more she shat, the thirstier she grew, and her thirst sent her crawling to the stream to suck up more water.
>Ten thousand of your children perished in my palm, Your Grace. Whilst you slept, I would lick your sons off my face and fingers one by one, all pale sticky princes.
>The three men were erect. The sight of their arousal was arousing, though Daenerys Targaryen found it amusing as well.

The fact that GoT loosely follows this formula (no need for quotes you faggot) is the whole point of my original post. That he improved upon it. Doesn't it pay to read?

To your actual point: no one topped Tolkien in originality because he invented everything for fantasy. That's what I stated, he derived the template for fantasy.

Tolkien is an over worded, over complicated bore with plenty of filler padding it out. It's drastically overrated.

>That he improved upon it
In what way? I can't think of any fantasy/setting/world-building element that GRRM did better than Tolkien. Literally the only thing he might have a leg up on Tolkien with is character depth, but that's because he and Tolkien have to vastly different approaches to writing. You're comparing apples and oranges here.

>over worded
Explain
>over complicated
Are you literally retarded?

I honestly have no fucking clue why people keep comparing tolkien and martin, other than the fact that both works are technically fantasy they have fuck all in common. you might as well compare the prince of nothing and the malazan book of the fallen, there's no connection there whatsoever

>he managed to improve on Tolkien
lmao his writing style is absolutely pathetic compared to Tolkien's prose. Seriously his shit is absolutely horrendous to read. Tolkien's writing flows like and endless stream of poetic and divine nectar (emphasis on endless), GRRM flows like an obese paraplegic piss stream chocking on kidney stones (emphasis on piss).

To compare the two is one thing, but to put them on equal ground is absolutely heretical and wrong.

>GoT was a more easily adaptable series than LotR ever was
How does that make it better?

They're not comparable.
Tolkien wanted to create a legendarium, Martin just wanted to create a fantasy saga.
That for the quality of their works, which once again, are not really comparable (you could compare the LotR saga to ASOIAF, something I don't want to do because I think LotR is terribly written and people will probably think i'm baiting)
However, when it comes to their work as literary fiction, Tolkien was far more original, and in the future I'd say he'll continue to be far more influential.
GRRM work can only be considered "original" in the context of a genre dominated by Tolkien wannabes.

GoT season one (the most faithful to the ASOIAF books) is a better TV show than Twin Towers (the most faithful to the books) is a movie.

Again, how does that make GRRMs work an improvement on Tolkien's? If we're talking about the books here, adaptability to another medium if probably the very last thing you should be considering. That's a terrible way to critique something.

Right, and Michael Bay is a better film maker than Tarkovsky because I could more accurately adapt The Rock to a novel than Zerkalo.

Two Towers and it was the movie that was least faithful to the books.

I'd rather read a Magic The Gathering book to be honest.

I never said that the GoT books being more adaptable made them better than LotR. And I'm not sure how that thought even crossed your mind. The GoT books are better for the reason I actually stated,

I never said shit about GoT being more accurately adaptable than LotR. Please read carefully.

We read different books, or watched different movies.

Yeah sure. What's with this propensity in literature to always venerate the shit that's old? If you had a novel about anything published in 1930 and a novel with similar themes published in 2003, jackoffs would always call the older shit better. Half the fucking "classics" I've read have been absolute dogshit but hey, the people who wrote them are dead now so that makes them good

>The GoT books are better for the reason I actually stated
Which is?

>people are just pretending it's good
L M A O

>Twin Towers (the most faithful to the books)
I can not take you seriously sorry.
Fellowship is the most faithful despite Bombadil's absence and the wheathertop changes. It's obvious to anyone who appreciates Tolkien. Two Towers takes several more significant liberties with Saruman in particular, and let's keep ROTK's out of this discussion for now because that one is quite a mess in that regard.

>doesn't read the OP
>asks a question that he'd know the answer to if he read the OP

I see you come from the Sup Forums school of posting

he was making a 9/11 joke dude

Not exactly. More like people are elevating something that's good, or was good at the time, into greatness because it's old. Maybe at the time it came out it blew everyone's minds, but it aged badly, and now because at the time everyone called it great everyone today is afraid to say "hey, this is just not that impressive"

Most notably there's the changes made to the whole Faramir/Ithilien segment. Elves did not come to Helm's Deep in the book and Aragorn didn't get dragged off a cliff by a warg. I genuinely can't understand how you think The Two Towers was the most faithful movie. I'd say it was Fellowship.

You've stated literally no reasoning in the OP as to how GRRM improved on Tolkien other than "GoT was a more easily adaptable series than LotR ever was", so please explain and clarify yourself.

Oh and the movie completely skipped over the Entmoot which was lame.

LotR is still incredibly impressive. The depth of and breadth of Tolkien's work has yet to be surpassed in the genre.

Why does he trigger neckbeards & nerds so badly? Does simplistic storytelling appeal to low IQs or something?

>GoT season one (the most faithful to the ASOIAF books) is a better TV show than Twin Towers (the most faithful to the books) is a movie.

who said anything about old vs new but you?
I said Tolkien's writing is better, his prose is better, his style is better. Go ahead and explain to us how GRRM writes better literature in your opinion than Tolkien. I'm not asking to taunt, I'm dead serious I want to know your opinion on why GRRM is a better writer. What is it that he does that Tolkien doesn't do better?

I firmly disagree.

World-Building:Malazan books have a much greater and deeper scope in a larger and more intricate world

Story: Pretty simplic, and there's nothing wrong with that, but there have been lots of better and more sophisticated stories in fantasy since

Characters: Archetypes, and again, that's fine, but hardly anything revolutionary

His writing style is good, but LOTR shows its age

Which "classics" did you read and why didn't you like them, user?

GoT is easily adaptable but what else could you expect from the dullest franchise in the history of tv franchises. Seriously each episode following Daenerys and her wyvern pals as they fight assorted shitlords 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 GRRM agreed to D&D directing the series; he made sure the series would never be mistaken for a work of art that meant anything to anybody. Just ridiculously profitable cross-promotion for his books which he will never finish before dying of fat. The GoT series might be anti-Tolkien (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-fantasy 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 "dies."

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 hundred times. I was incredulous. GRRM's mind is so governed by cliches and literal shit metaphors that he has no other style of writing. Later I read a lavish, loving review of GoT by /lit/. They wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading GRRM at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go and post on Sup Forums." And they were quite right. They were not being ironic. When you read "GoT" you are, in fact, trained to be a Sup Forums poster.

fucking kek

>Characters: Archetypes
They're archetypes because Tolkien literally invented modern fantasy as a genre.
>LOTR shows its age
What does this even mean? "It seems old" is not a valid critique of writing

Tolkien has better world building but his prose is ass. GRRM has better characters, but his plot and world building pale compared to Tolkien. Overall LoTR is still much more impressive. GRRM could have done better if he didn't follow the cliche Aragorn hero trophe, which has already been done by y'know fucking Aragorn.

>his prose is ass
This has to be bait. Especially if you're comparing him to fucking GRRM

And we've evolved from those prototypes since then into more complex characterization

Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, Anna Karenina, are just a few off the top of my head that are shit. In fact the only great classics I can think of are anything by James Joyce and Moby Dick. The others are middle of the road stuff I forgot as soon as I read it. Like Dickens, what's the deal with fucking Dickens, fuck that guy.

OP here. The clear point in the OP is that the GoT books have a setting and cast of characters that makes it much more engrossing than that of the LotR books. A lot of LotR's characters are 1D. There are only a handful of GoT characters who are 1D (Ned, Arya, Tyrion).

>Ten thousand of your children perished in my palm, Your Grace. Whilst you slept, I would lick your sons off my face and fingers one by one, all pale sticky princes
How would they know what sperm is

What makes you think they're shit?
All the classics are considered so for a bunch of reasons, you just have to read the Wikipedia page of their books to find them.
Just because you don't like them doesn't meant they're shit. I couldn't even finish Ulysses, I was bored to death, but I still wouldn't say it was shit.

so basically your frame of literature references is hyper narrow. Now we know why you're into GRRM.
Next step for you? J.K Rowling? Stephen King? Kevin J. Anderson?

That point wasn't made clear at all, and I have to disagree. As a setting, Middle Earth is far more interesting than Westeros.

>but his prose is ass
People who repeat this tired old meme have never actually read Tolkien. His prose is brilliant, he just gets way too bogged down in irrelevant details.

my mom bought me all of the hobbit books. there are a lot of chapters where it's clear he didn't give a shit about what he was writing

>all of the hobbit books

His prose is fucking garbage mate.
Don't even try that "he wanted it to read like a classic epic like the Iliad or the Bible" bullshit because if no one writes like that anymore is for a reason.

Jesus fucking Christ lol.

>His prose is fucking garbage mate.
Why?

Took this guy 6 years to write a novel where nothing happens except Tyrion bitching about his wife.

>His prose is fucking garbage mate.

I like this thread.

Oh sorry, I didn't know I was supposed to fill ten posts name dropping famous authors, how about you be fucking specific about who you want to talk about
>but I still wouldn't say it was shit.

No, you wouldn't. But you thought so. And that's the fucking problem in a nutshell. Maybe if you would and people discussed it, it would be more productive than just licking the balls of every old book in existence

>Don't even try that "he wanted it to read like a classic epic like the Iliad or the Bible"
Have you read a single page of either of those things? Tolkien's prose is nothing like the Illiad, you fucking dunce.

>improve on Tolkien's formula?

That's like claiming Tarantino is a reformulation of DW Griffith. Its absurd and retarded. There are decades and generations of evolution, directly indirectly, tertiary and otherwise that have influenced and changed what a writer might write,and how it would be perceived.

GRRM didn't reformulate JRRT. He stands downstream in a river a thousand miles long in ankle deep water and watches as it passes to the sea. He didn't create the mountain or the snow that melted long ago and far way a countless many times for eons. Neither does he contemplate the unfathomably deep ocean sending the water back to the top of the frozen mountain. He doesn't reformulate anything. He stands looking at his reflection in waters created by greater men and gods in processes he doesn't understand.

Reformulate indeed. He barely pisses in the pot and gives it a stir.

>GRRM is a hack!
>show turns to garbage immediately after they run out of GRRM material
umm....

>No, you wouldn't. But you thought so.
We have a genuine retard in our midst. If you can't make a basic distinction between personal taste and artistic merit then you're absolutely hopeless.
Well said

Tolkien's world building is not praised by its size or complexity, but by how he weaves it within his works.

His universe is not filled with original ideas, it's not huge and full of political intrigue. That was never his strength.

His prose is purple, even by the standards of the 20th century, but most of the times it was for the sake of it, to give a feeling of an epic saga, with nothing interesting to talk about.
To him, the setting of the ME was as important and the plot, and as cool as that might seem if you find the setting fascinating, from the point of view of the narrative that is atrocious.
What this means is that every few pages you have him going on a tangent explaining a tidbit of the world that is irrelevant to the overall narrative of LotR. This is cool if you're interested in worldbuilding, but it's an absolute faux pass when it comes to the quality of the books themselves.

>Have you read a single page of either of those things? Tolkien's prose is nothing like the Illiad, you fucking dunce.
I've read the Iliad, and I definitely see some of those endless monologue-like conversations in Tolkien, it was one of the traits that established the relationship between epic stories and that kind of prose.

lol shut up you goofy dink

GoT is fucking cancer. Don't compare that retard to Tolkien

If anything he weaves it badly, since the progression of the story is constantly stopping so that the world building can be inserted in
Oh god you're one of those.

>I hate this book, but yes, it's brilliant because a Wikipedia page wanks off to it's "themes", no matter how badly they're implemented

...

>They heard of the Great Barrows, and the green mounds, and the stone-rings upon the hills and in the hollows among the hills. Sheep were bleating in flocks. Green walls and white walls rose. There were fortresses on the heights. Kings of little kingdoms fought together, and the young Sun shone like fire on the red metal of their new and greedy swords. There was victory and defeat; and towers fell, fortresses were burned, and flames went up into the sky. Gold was piled on the biers of dead kings and queens; and mounds covered them, and the stone doors were shut; and the grass grew over all. Sheep walked for a while biting the grass, but soon the hills were empty again. A shadow came out of dark places far away, and the bones were stirred in the mounds. Barrow-wights walked in the hollow places with a clink of rings on cold fingers, and gold chains in the wind. Stone rings grinned out of the ground like broken teeth in the moonlight.

One of the things I absolutely love about LotR is the sense of ancient history going on in the background. It's fantastic and makes you want to know more.

>from the point of view of the narrative that is atrocious
No, it's what makes the books so good. Also, you don't know what prose is.

>I hate this book, but yes, it's brilliant because a Wikipedia page wanks off to it's "themes", no matter how badly they're implemented
Yeah, you're retarded. Case closed

>since the progression of the story is constantly stopping so that the world building can be inserted in

Never had any issues of the sort, but it seems to be a problem for you. Any examples of it?

Man, you sound like a kid who saw the last transformer movie and truly believes it's the best sci fi movie ever made by mankind. It's not about dropping names, but if you are starting a thread about literature I mean you better know a bit more about it than moby dick and war and peace if you want to be taken seriously don't you think?

Would you have a serious sci fi movie discussion with that transformer kid? I wouldn't. he's just a kid who doesn't know any better because he lacks the culture. He's not a bad kid. He's just young and uninformed. And you appear to me a bit like that. Strong opinions but nothing much to back it up or to dig any deeper.

It's ok if you prefer GRRM. Honestly I don't mind. Each one his own. But when you start comparing him to someone like Tolkien who achieved so much more than GRRM ever will, I have to tell you you are walking a very very thin line and of course chances are you'll fall. And landing usually hurts.

You're absolutely retarded. You asked me what classics I didn't like, I gave you a few examples of classics I didn't like, did you want me to seriously write 50,000 words on every single book I've read?

Are you fucking serious?

>No, it's what makes the books so good.
It's what makes the book objectively terrible.
>Also, you don't know what prose is.
I mentioned the prose in my first sentence, the rest of the rant was about the narrative because that's the other major flaw.
He forces himself to write in an epic style and that ends up being detrimental because he's just uncapable of, and that also is at odds with his narrative, because how can he convey the feeling of an epic journey to save the Earth when at the same time he introduces a character like Tom Bombadil? A character that is seemingly all-powerful, but that doesn't want to do nothing for whatever reason, and to understand what's the point of him (he has no point inside the plot of LotR) you have to read supplementary material, it brings down all his poor attempts to write a journey to save the world.

GRMM is for dumb people who think they're smart

Tolkien is for smart people who think they're dumb

>No, you wouldn't. But you thought so.
I thought I didn't like it, nothing more, nothing less.
Are you so fucking stupid you can't separate between your personal opinion and the objective quality of a work?

so far it's opinions you spit here, not comparative analysis, not reasoning, not demonstrations, nothing but opinions.
Have your opinions then. But don't be surprised if people disagree.

Why do these threads get a pass but you can't make a Harry Potter thread without copypasta about how bad it is?

See

And every single reply to me from you has been not even your opinions, but ad hominems.
Here
If you want to call LOTR the greatest fantasy work of all time, then proceed to dispute any of my claims here

It's amazing how most criticism of lotr consists of Bombadil in a way. If you want to know why he didn't bother with the ring, it's simple: it's none of his business. And there is no need to read any extra material for that, because Bombadil himself implies so.

I wonder is this is the effect of modern fantasy, questioning why gods and immortal beings don't behave the way humans would.

>being an adaptable book as TV series means it's good literature

really takes my noggin for a jog

>He forces to write in an epic style and that ends up being detrimental because he's just incapable of
How so? His writing is excellent and portrays the sense of grandeur and scale perfectly. His intent was to write an epic, after all. There are also plenty of quiet moments in the book that you seem to be forgetting about. Everything in the Shire is fairly reserved in terms of prose and grandeur. The writing appropriately becomes more sweeping and bombastic as our characters venture further and the narrative slowing swings from "Hobbit on an adventure" to "quest to save the world".
>and that is at odds with his narrative
It isn't. Not even remotely. Tolkien set out to write an epic and that's exactly what he did.
>because how can he convey the feeling of an epic journey to save the Earth when at the same time he introduces a character like Tom Bombadil?
Tom Bombadil is an oddity that the Hobbits encounter on their journey. Nothing more. Nowhere in the book does it suggest overtly that he's all-powerful or omnipotent. Merely impervious to the ring. He's emblematic of a world far older and bigger than anything our characters know. This is exactly in line with the narrative.

"easily adaptable" isnt a good thing though, usually it just means "straight forward"

Those are mostly just memesters.

You're making statements here with absolutely no reasoning to justify them.

>It's amazing how most criticism of lotr consists of Bombadil in a way.
He's simply the tip of the iceberg, I distinctly recall several pasages of brief exposition about zones around the world that were not important to the overall narrative but I couldn't name one off the top of my head. Tom Bombadil stucks because it's a whole character that his entire existence is tangential to the history.
This by itself is not important (plenty of characters they met in the travel are one-note), but it becomes annoying when Tom Bombadil is portrayed as an all-powerful person, and the book just expects you to go "yeah, whatever" and return to the journey of epic proportions to save the world. It brings cognitive dissonance, it breaks the theme of the narrative. To build his world and his legendarium, he's bringing down the storytelling of the book. And, as a person that has no interest in immersing myself in the lore of the ME and just wants to read the damn books, that's incredibly annoying.
>His writing is excellent and portrays the sense of grandeur and scale perfectly.
I don't think so, I find his prose failed spectacularly to convey the gravity of the situation in, for example, the battle for Gondor (the Pelennor fields?).
>Nowhere in the book does it suggest overtly that he's all-powerful or omnipotent. Merely impervious to the ring.
The single fact that he's impervious to the ring raises a great ton of questions, when the ring is a Macguffin of untold power.
Tom Bombadil goes against the Chekov's gun principle, it's literary masturbation.