Stars Uncounted - Ian's Fantasy Bookshelf
View my complete profile Ian E.S. Adler
To start, I was once one of George R.R. Martin's most avid fans, calling him – as many did and do –  the American Tolkien.  Below is what I ...
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To start, I was once one of George R.R. Martin's most avid fans, calling him the American Tolkien. Below is what I wrote on facebook the day I quit book 5 of his A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Dance with Dragons (NO SPOILERS):

"THAT IS IT!!! I am quitting George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. I have never done this with a book before, least of all one so masterful, but I am tired of reading simply to see vengeance enacted on mad lions and treacherous bannermen.

I am sick and tired of his twisted universe of whores and swords, where honor is as dead as those who loose their heads because of it.

True Fantasy is about love, justice, adventure, and wisdom, all of which is demonstrated through lack of example in Ice and Fire.

Ice is cold and treacherous, fire is hot and ruthless. GOOD RIDDANCE."

I henceforth, and with the greatest, gravest, respect to his skill as a writer and storyteller, name George R.R. Martin the Anti-Tolkien and his A Song of Ice and Fire series a treachery to the High Fantasy. Why? J.R.R. Tolkien created a vast world, a history, a legendarium, on a scale that no other author has ever reached. However, I now loathe calling GRRM the American Tolkien less because he is an inferior storyteller by comparison so much as because GRRM has nothing to offer but blood, porn, and amoral lessons that corrupt the soul. reject is the message of the series, which I judge as a treachery to the Fantasy genre. A Song of Ice and Fire strongly implies that it is only great power that can hold evil in check, while The Lord of the Rings stands for the idea that it is the everyday deeds of ordinary folk which keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.

Did you know that GRRM believes that Tolkien should have killed Gandalf permanently because he had such a great death scene in Moria?

Looking back, I cannot see how anybody can call GRRM the American Tolkien story-wise as anybody who has read The Silmarillion, The Book of Unfinished Tales, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings knows that J.R.R. Tolkien is incalculably superior.

I cannot see how GRRM ensnared me as he did for so long. Every book was endless intrigue and the times was marked simply by who lived and who died in what book. True Fantasy is higher. Time is marked by nations built, growing relationships, and journey of dear friends.

guilty of the Treason of the Intellectuals and Isengard. Yet what I find most ironic, in a darkly amusing manner, is that George R. R. Martin says that he revers The Lord of the Rings. He calls himself a "friendly critic" and acknowledges that Tolkien is the Father of Modern Fantasy, but asks also "What was Aragorn’s tax policy?" He says "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."

The Kinslaying at Alqualondë

My response: Yes, ruling is hard but it is a heck of a lot easier when you do not have seven and more bickering Houses constantly trying to stab one another in cruel and bloody bids for power. Moreover, as you should know from the Darkening of Valinor and War of the Jewels from The Silmarillion, the land had many good kings, Elvenkings at that, and did not prosper. Indeed, The War of the Jewels was no less tragic, no less filled with fire and blood, than your War of Five Kings. Just ask Lady Galadriel to tell you her family history, the history of the House of Finwë, and you will hear a tale of bloodshed and treachery to match or exceed that of House Stark. "No man is so accursed as the kinslayer," as your Lord Rickard Karstark said, along with many and more of your characters both moral and otherwise. Indeed, you make a point of this fact as any individual who kills a member of their own family is dubbed a "kinslayer", and believed to be cursed forever in your world, with the high and lowborn both believing this. Well, and as the picture above illustrates, Tolkien made a point of it first and the punishment of the Kinslaying at Alqualondë was a true curse.

"Tears unnumbered ye shall shed; and the Valar will fence Valinor against you, and shut you out, so that not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains. On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East, and upon all that will follow them it shall be laid also. Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass. The Dispossessed shall they be for ever. ..." - The Doom of Mandos (also called the Doom of the Noldor, the Curse of Mandos, and the Prophecy of the North)

Hill of Slain

And that was hardly even the first kinslaying. Again, just ask Lady Galadriel to tell you her family history. Indeed, temptation and desire for power and wealth is one of Tolkien's most enduring themes. From Gollum's lust/hate relationship with the Ring (a source of temptation to many) and himself, to Thorin and his lust for gold (called the Dragon Sickness), to Saruman's desire for dominion that grew out of his research into the Rings of Power. (Temptation pervades The Silmarillion as well, as the Great Jewels named the Silmarils were tainted by the arrogance and lust by anyone who desired them. Radiant things of beauty they were and no mortal or evil hands could to touch them without being burned and withered, yet the aforementioned and unutterably tragic War of the Jewels was fought in their name. Then, later, it was lust for immortality that brought about the Downfall of Númenor.) The difference is that Tolkien explores these themes in a far more subtle manner amid the various cultures and mysteries of Middle-earth than is possible is the starkly (pun intended) political world of Westeros where lust for lordship and physical pleasure are rife as a rule and seem to define the majority of those in power. Hence the notion that Tolkien writes pure good vs. evil, both in overall plot and characters, is laughable (another example being the pride and often conflicting natures of Boromir and Denethor.)

Hence, GRRM, you are correct that real history is not so simple as good vs. evil, and Tolkien knew it; indeed, he was a World War I combat veteran, fighting in the Battle of the Somme. (Look up the Tale of the Children of Hurin if you need more evidence. Look up the history of Gondor and the Lost Kingdom of Arnor Downfall of Númenor.). You say, "In some sense, when I started this saga I was replying to Tolkien." I say that if I wanted to combine the wonder and image of Tolkien fantasy with the gloom of historical fiction." I say: Who ever said that historical fiction is gloomy? Maybe the ones you prefer are, but do not lay such a shadow over the genre as a whole. Quite frankly, Westeros and lands across the Narrow Sea appears to be a land based off of Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince (a 16th-century political treatise), which states that it is better, safer, for a leader to be feared as opposed to loved. Prince Joffrey seemed to approve of the notion, as does his mother, and Lord Tywin Lannister all but embodies a Machiavellian approach to kingship, Tywin who is more respected than loved in the westerlands. As Ned Stark once famously said, "I would sooner entrust a child to a pit viper than to Lord Tywin."

The simple fact, sir, is that you made your universe perverse and gloomy; no one else. Like the Valyrians, you built your world on blood and fire, and thus your story continues to reap that dark legacy. Other authors of most genres, as well as people in general, prefer to sow different seeds.

"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater." - J.R.R. Tolkien

The illustrator Ted Nasmith once described the wonder and power of Fantasy in but a single sentence: "It opened up in me a dormant love of lost and misty times, myth and legend."

Naturally, in regards to specifics, the quote refers to when his sister introduced him to The Lord of the Rings.

Minas Tirith at Dawn

To say that Ted Nasmith is a stellar artist is a cosmic understatement, and indeed his justified fame comes from his illustrations of J. R. R. Tolkien's works – The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. As such, I find it bitterly ironic that, after Middle-Earth, the next Fantasy author whose world Nasmith has brought to life should be that George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (i.e. the wretched realm of Westeros and the lands across the narrow sea).

Casterly Rock

I have said, and will again, that I have infinite respect for GRRM’s skill as a storyteller and worldbuilder. Still, it is hard for me to see the artist that so splendidly brought Minas Tirith to life perform the same courtesy to Casterly Rock; to see the topless towers of Old Valyria rendered as skillfully as the shores of Valinor.

Then again, I suppose Nasmith has covered his bases, doing Tolkien and Anti-Tolkien and all. Talking of which, the difference between Valinor and Valyria further exemplifies the difference between the two authors, Tolkien and GRRM, and why I hold the the latter to be a traitor to the High Fantasy. To quote GRRM and then his character Tyrion Lannister (the latter regarding the Doom of Valyria):

"At its apex Valyria was the greatest city in the known world, the center of civilization. Within its shining walls, twoscore rival houses vied for power and glory in court and council, rising and falling in an endless, subtle, oftsavage struggle for dominance."

"An empire built on blood and fire. The Valyrians reaped the seed they had sown."

The Towers of Valyria (originally Old Valyria)

Fire and blood...and slavery for, as I recall, the Valyrian dragonlords were extensive, brutal, and shameless slavers. Thousands captured during wars, thousands bred like cattle during peace, and tens of thousands dying scorching deaths in mines under volcanoes to state the Old Valyria's thirst for gold and silver. To say nothing of the many more brutally slain in the countless and futile slave revolts, nor the fact that these despotic Freeholders oft went to war for no other reason than to acquire slaves for as to keep the these blistering mines full.

So I ask now, why is the empire that committed these unfathomable atrocities viewed judged to be "the greatest city in the known world, the center of civilization"? Telling, is it not, that the majority of GRRM's characters speak of it with grave admiration and respect – as though it was an impossible dream one aspires to.

White Ships From Valinor

Of course, Valinor is viewed in like fashion by the peoples of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth, the difference being that the realm of the Valar is a place where all find safety and healing, and where war is judged abhorrent by every definition of the word. It the land of the Elves, a realm where bright and beautiful things are made for the joy and wonder of it, and where a select few mortals have peace. Call it not totally idyllic, as the events of the The Silmarillion prove that blood and shadow and jealously do occasionally break through, but even that is not the point.

The point is that Valinor, unlike Valyria, is truly a place worthy of admiration and aspiration, and the fact that GRRM employs the Valyrian Freehold as Tolkien does the Uttermost West proves yet again that their is naught but blood at the heart of A Song of Ice and Fire. Furthermore, the use of such old civilizations is not uncommon in the Fantasy genre, yet Old Valyra is unique in its cruelty.

Hence, understanding all of this, I think Ted Nasmith captured those rather marked differences quite well in his portrayal of the two lands.

Prince Rhaegar Targaryen

Lyanna Stark

Lyanna died in a room

that smelled of "blood and roses"

Recall how GRRM believes that Tolkien should have killed Gandalf permanently because he had such a great death scene in Moria and because the characters should have been made to go on without him? Well, that dependence on Mithrandir was exactly why Professor Tolkien had him fall in Moria and constantly otherwise vanish on some errand or another. In The Hobbit, Gandalf disappears before a certain scene with three hungry trolls and then left Bilbo and Dwarves as they entered Mirkwood to appear again just before the Battle of Five Armies. Then, in The Lord of the Rings, he fails to meet Frodo as he sets out and is thus gone for the better portion of book one (until Rivendell), falls in Moria and does not reappear until Fangorn, and leaves again until after the battle of Battle of Helm's Deep. Being Gandalf he is always doing something of critical import that is usually revealed later, but the point is that the characters are constantly forced to go on without him. Indeed, Frodo and Sam believe him to be dead from Moria to after the Ring is destroyed. The lesson? That Tolkien found an ingenious way to counteract any over-dependence on Gandalf without having to kill him. George R. R. Martin, on the other hand, seems to rely on murder to remove such characters; goodness knows any and all Gandalf-figures in A Song of Ice and Fire are cold and buried or cold in anOther sort of way. Indeed, I have little doubt that GRRM would have found it more fitting if the wizard had come back as Gandalf the Wight.

Speaking of characters and returning proper the topic of the Gimdark, Tor Fantasy reviewer Liz Bourke characterizes Grimdark, and A Song of Ice and Fire by direct extension, as "a retreat into the valorization of darkness for darkness's sake, into a kind of nihilism that portrays right action (...) as either impossible or futile". This, according to her, has the effect of absolving the protagonists as well as the reader from moral responsibility. Finally, British journalist Damien Walter wrote in The Guardian his own view of GRRM’s Grimdark brand of Fantasy: "bigger swords, more fighting, bloodier blood, more fighting, axes, more fighting," and, he surmised, a "commercial imperative to win adolescent male readers." He sees this trend as being in opposition to "a truly epic and more emotionally nuanced kind of fantasy" that delivered storytelling instead of only blood and porn. In this I also utterly agree, for Fantasy literature is not supposed to revolve around the concept of constantly dodging death. Granted that, in Grimdark books, the possibility of character deaths in far greater and thus the suspense is higher. Mark Lawrence, author of the The Broken Empire Trilogy, attributes his own inspiration from George R. R. Martin. “I was impressed by how ruthless he was with characters we were invested in and how exciting that made reading the series,” Lawrence states. “Because you never felt safe and never knew for sure that things would work out in the end. It felt real and powerful.”

Yet Fantasy is not and has never been about raw survival; it is not the Hunger Games. It is about the journey, about learning things, about attaining a certain level of maturity/understanding about the world and one's place within it; along, of course, with what is truly worth fighting for. Grimdark, however, given its gritty nature, seems to put survival above else and forgives characters usage of frank brutality and heartlessness to achieve it. Well, if this is the new moral standard then all advocates of the Grimdark should carefully weigh the pros and cons of using the One Ring to overthrow Sauron. After all, Gandalf himself said that only through its usage could the forces of good guarantee the downfall of the Lord of the Rings. And that gritty, heartless and self-centered moral standard is one that no book should even indirectly espouse, for it is better to die in battle against heartless brutality than become a tyrant in turn.

"That's the hardest thing of all–never to become cynical, never to lose faith, never to become indifferent." - Sergei Lukyanenko

Now, however, it is only fair that I let George R.R. Martin speak. But before I do, please recall the words of House Stark: Winter is coming.

He sounds wise here, but really there is a appreciable level of hypocrisy. The Others are beyond question an I-am-going-to-cover-the-world-with-darkness kind of evil race, and in a very literal fashion if the Long Night and their necromancy is any indication.

The cold winds are rising, and men go out from their fires

and never come back ...

or if they do, they're not men no more,

but only wights, with blue eyes and cold black hands.

Furthermore, and again, his books espouse the philosophy that one must needs be a hardhearted killer to survive per the fact that most everybody who does otherwise is either dead or in exile. And let us again recall that this is the man who wrote "love is the bane of honor, the death of duty." Anyway, and returning to the current point, GRRM can talk about not liking fell and inhuman races covering the the world in shadow, but in fact he did a better job of it than most fantasy authors creating chill horrors of ice and darkness that make Tolkien's orcs seem tame by comparison.

Demons made of snow and ice and cold.

The ancient enemy. The only enemy that matters.

"The night is dark and full of terrors" as I recall, and I definitely did not imagine the Night's Watch nor the various undead wights that Jon Snow and the rest of them are forced to deal with both at and Beyond the Wall. GRRM may claim his world to be something governed by the whims and social complexities of humanity, but throughout his entire work, from the prologue of book #1 and through all the black intrigue of the rest, he slowly but inextricably builds up the threat of winter and the Others. A trend confirmed not only by the trials of Jon Snow, but also by those of Bran Stark. Lord Commander Jeor Mormont once told Samwell Tarly, "The Night's Watch has forgotten its true purpose, Tarly. You don't build a wall seven hundred feet high to keep savages in skins from stealing women. The Wall was made to guard the realms of men ... and not against other men, which is all the wildlings are when you come right down to it. Too many years, Tarly, too many hundreds and thousands of years. We lost sight of the true enemy." Per the above video, it seems to me that GRRM may have forgotten as well, which strikes me as passing odd seeing as they are his most notable and unique creations. Why, he is even utilizing the classic ancient-prophecy-which-foretells-the-coming-of-a-hero-to-deliver-the-world-from-darkness trick in the form of the legend/prophecy of Azor Ahai, the prince that was promised: "When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone." A hero who is supposedly destined to fight and forever drive back the Others and the night they bring using the blade unimaginatively named Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes. The issue of course being that his ingenious usage of this old trick coupled with the even older Flaming Sword archetype is marginalized by his ruthless High Lords playing their game of thrones.

I will not lie. When I first began George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire I was utterly hooked. How could I not be? The Prologue beyond the Wall, in the dark and cold of Haunted Forest alongside the members of the Night's Watch, was like nothing I had ever read before. Indeed, I believe that GRRM's great mistake was not putting the Others oath of the Night's Watch:"Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come."

In short, if he had stuck with the Others as his tale's principle foe a opposed to the Lannisters then, instead of birthing the Grimdark which amounts to a blood and porn with a nihilism overlay approach to Tolkien-style epic Fantasy GRRM could created one of the finest ever of the High Fantasies just as J.K. Rowling was writing Harry Potter

So as one can see, I have infinite respect for George R.R. Martin’s skill as a storyteller and worldbuilder; he is truly among the best, comparable to that of J.K. Rowling and even Tolkien himself. Yet his story and his world is a First Class betrayal of the moral high-minded optimistic realism that is the true Spirit of the High Fantasy and of J.R.R. Tolkien – who fought in the trenches of World War I– its founder. After all, and again, those characters who do best in Westeros and the lands across the Narrow Sea, those who truly thrive, are employers of a sickening combination of murder, betrayal and often rape all overlaid with a fine golden gilt of heartless cunning. Hence my name for it: Corrupted Fantasy. I was once one of GRRM's most avid fans, but I, of course, saw the error of my ways. Philip Pullman, the author of the His Dark Material trilogy, described C.S. Lewis' work as an anti-inspiration to him, disgusted with the heavy Christian moralizing in the Chronicles of Narnia; a sentiment I understand and agree with. So is George R.R. Martin's work an anti-inspiration to me, and I am the Enemy of the Grimdark (much as Gandalf was the Enemy of Sauron), for I am disgusted by the cold-blooded lack of moral codes its seems to espouse. Does this sound overly dramatic? Well, if so, it is because reading

Winter is over for me

The Downfall of Numenor

The Númenóreans were the strongest and proudest race of humans who ruled a vast overseas empire from their island home, they themselves having distinct physical features that set them apart from other humans (great height). Then, to cut a long story short, they fell from their wisdom and embarked on a deed that promised destruction. But before they fell, Amandil son of Númendil, Lord of Andúnië led his people away and so escaped the utter and complete rupturing and flooding that followed which coupled with the total annihilation of Númenor. His son Elendil would go on to found the Kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor in Middle-Earth.

The Doom of Valyria

In GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire universe, Valyria was the

strongest and proudest of civilizations, ruling a vast overseas empire from their peninsula home, they themselves having distinct physical features that set them apart from other humans (purple eyes and silver-gold hair). Exactly how and why they fell remains a mystery, but before the Doom occurred, the daughter of Lord Aenar Targaryen had visions of a cataclysm that would overcome Valyria. A foresight which came true as the Valyrian Peninsula was flooded and shattered beyond repair. Thus he fled to Westeros, where his descendant Aegon the Conqueror would unite the land under the Iron Throne.

Thus in both cases did a noble House flee the vast empire before it's destruction and would go on to be Kings and lords of humans. Of course, Númenor as well as Gondor and Arnor are vastly more noble and humane realms than Old Valyria and Westeros, but the fact still remains.

It appears that I have uncovered another leaf that GRRM took from Tolkien's book, a very subtle leaf that only one learned in the lore of Arda (Tolkien's fantasy universe) would spot amongst GRRM's thorns. And spotting, that it clarity of sight, is the exact nature of this discovery, for their is an unmistakable kinship between the Palantír of The Lord of the Rings and the Glass Candles of A Song of Ice and Fire.

The Palantír were made by the Elves of Valinor in the Undying Lands, the acknowledge apex of civilization in Arda. Called the Seven Seeing Stones, they resembled large dark glass spheres with murky depths (but are in truth indestructible dark crystals) and with them those with the skill and will can gaze upon many things across the face of the world. Gaze and communicate with those looking into other, different, Palantír despite the Seeing Stones being scattered across the vast realms of Gondor and Arnor. These magical artifacts burn with a strange inner fire when used and were rescued from the Downfall of Númenor by Lord Elendil and his sons and taken to Middle-Earth where they were set up in various towers across the Realms in Exile.

As to the Glass Candles, they were made in Old Valyria, the acknowledge apex of civilization in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. Like the Palantír they are dark, though of twisted and razor-sharp obsidian as opposed to smooth crystal, and it t is claimed that when the glass candles burn the sorcerers can see across mountains, seas and deserts, give humans visions and dreams and the ability to communicate with one another half a world apart. Sound familiar? Well, if not, then I should also say that these Glass Candles were rescued from the Doom of Valyria and give off twisted light when they burn. In GRRM's universe their most noted home is the Citadel, the great tower home and HQ of the Maesters.

Again this is a subtle point, but an unmistakable one, and illustrates well enough that George R.R. Martin may have borrowed more from J.R.R. Tolkien than is commonly believed. (Another example being the giant spiders ridden by the Others. Not that that bit of borrowing was unique to GRRM though. Indeed, as we have yet to see one, I will call him circumspect in that instance; particularly when compared to, say, J.K. Rowling. Aragog has nothing on Shelob in my mind, much less the primordial Ungoliant.)