Is a Song of Ice and Fire better than Lord of the Rings?

[SofieVandepitte]

As both a fan of Martin and Tolkien, I find it hard to answer this topic.

My first and biggest love will always go out to Tolkien for what he created. His imagination is by far the most impressing one I've encountered in fantasy literature. Martin has also never introduced feelings as grand in me as Tolkien did.

To me, Tolkien's works are painful to the heart, because they're so tragical and utterly sad (Dagor Dagorath always leaves me in tears!). Tolkien's legendarium is far more emotional than Martin's.

But I'm literally fascinated with Martin's world, too. I've never had much trouble with sexism in his books and I am a feminist. To me, his strongest characters are by far women (Daenerys, Melisandre, Cersei, Arya, Sansa), so I don't get the issue there.

Plus, I'm starting to think I'm the only one who profoundly enjoyed reading ADWD. His description of Tyrion's and Daeny's adventures in Essos are deadly interesting; same counts for Jon and his politics at the Wall.

But Martin's world is less emotional to me than Tolkien's is. Westeros and co. is more some sort of study to me, instead of a fantasy tale. It's more realistic; there are, of course, fantasy elements in ASOIAF (dragons, White Walkers), but the whole is less imaginative than Tolkien's world.

In short, I like them both in different ways, even though I still prefer Tolkien.

Whereas Martin's imagination speaks to the mind, Tolkien's speaks to the heart. And I think that's fine.

[Aganzir]

Originally Posted by SofieVandepitte

I've never had much trouble with sexism in his books and I am a feminist. To me, his strongest characters are by far women (Daenerys, Melisandre, Cersei, Arya, Sansa), so I don't get the issue there.

I'm not overly fond of his offhand treatment of rape, and I find his child brides kind of icky (while far be it from me to deny teenage sexuality, I'm not okay with forced marriages of 14-yeard-olds). Also I often feel that his women characters aren't active agents to the extent that the men are - with the exception of the likes of Arya, who is as tomboyish as it gets.
Still, many of the women are among my favourites, and while I personally don't like the things I mentioned here, they are not nearly enough to put me off the series. I think pretty much the only author whose misogyny has ever made me actually quit his books is Gene Wolfe, and GRRM has a long way to go to reach such depths.

I enjoyed reading ADWD too - but it took me a month (okay partly due to an intense two-week social gathering in the middle), whereas I finished the second and the third book in a matter of days.

Anyway welcome to the Downs!

[SofieVandepitte]

Originally Posted by Aganzir

I'm not overly fond of his offhand treatment of rape, and I find his child brides kind of icky (while far be it from me to deny teenage sexuality, I'm not okay with forced marriages of 14-yeard-olds). Also I often feel that his women characters aren't active agents to the extent that the men are - with the exception of the likes of Arya, who is as tomboyish as it gets.
Still, many of the women are among my favourites, and while I personally don't like the things I mentioned here, they are not nearly enough to put me off the series. I think pretty much the only author whose misogyny has ever made me actually quit his books is Gene Wolfe, and GRRM has a long way to go to reach such depths.

I enjoyed reading ADWD too - but it took me a month (okay partly due to an intense two-week social gathering in the middle), whereas I finished the second and the third book in a matter of days.

Anyway welcome to the Downs!

Yes, the Daenerys/Drogo relationship quite bothered me as well, I must admit. (Is that one of the 'rape' issues you're aiming at?) Rape is, indeed, quite common in his world and I'm certainly not OK with that, but in those grimy war times, it is, alas, not that surprising, sadly.

Yes, that's what I experienced, too! There's so much happening in ADWD, a hell lot of new characters are introduced, it's quite difficult to follow sometimes. I'm a rather quick reader, but ADWD was a long, long read. Nevertheless, it was interesting.

Thank you! I love discussing Tolkien's legendarium and I'm so happy I found this place!

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Aganzir

Also I often feel that his women characters aren't active agents to the extent that the men are - with the exception of the likes of Arya, who is as tomboyish as it gets.

Partially playing devil's advocate here, but I am not entirely sure I agree in the case of Catelyn and Daenerys. Yes, Catelyn was as stupid as a bucket of dead fish but her actions and decisions were the driving force of quite a lot of the things that ended up happening in the story (mostly the bad stuff because, again, she's dumb).

And almost all of Dany's arc is the result of the choices she has made and the direction that she has taken her followers. However, again she is not the sharpest tool in the shed and makes a number of bad choices and her character has not improved over the course of the series. I think a lot of that lack of development reflects Martin's own flaws as a writer.

So, while both these ladies are open to charges of not having enough functioning brain cells, I don't think an accusation of their having a lack of agency is entirely warranted.

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Life is not always nice and people are capable of great atrocities - as they are able to show the greatest kindness. And yes, trying to close one 's eyes on things that go against one's own moral standards is lying to oneself about reality. The attitude one has to things narrated one doesn't like is more or less the dividing line between reading for escapism and reading with interest in real life.

Of course. But there is a limit to what extent it makes good literature to describe violence in explicit detail. For my part, I think we should definitely not close our eyes from the violence and atrocity in the real world, but there is a fundamental difference between fact and fiction literature. I'd be ready to advocate Jonathan Glover's Humanity as compulsory reading in high schools, but I do not think it is entertainment to read about rape, torture and abuse. Moreover, I do not think it should be. And while Martin may have had lofty goals about criticizing violence and war by showing atrocities in detail (I don't know if he did), most of the time his descriptions of violence come off as if he wrote them that way chiefly for shock value or out of a desire to do something radical and different. As if he wrote that way because he thought it was somehow cool.

There is also the sexism issue Aganzir spoke about - I doubt a female author would get it in her head to write a 14-year-old forced into marriage and raped and then developing an uncomplicated loving relationship with the man soon after.

Violence and sexism aside, I enjoy parts of Martin's books, I don't enjoy others, but I like the HBO series and probably will finish reading the books sometime. But in terms of whether it is better than Tolkien - Martin has great scope and I like the ambiguity, but to me his prose lacks Tolkien's beauty, poise and literary skill. A Song of Ice and Fire makes a good read in its way, but it has none of Tolkien's depth; it doesn't carry meaning that can be applied outside the story itself. It doesn't have Tolkien's deeper themes, or else I haven't found them.