Honestly what's the difference? Why is JRRT called literature and GRRM not? Both have complex worldbuilding, both have involved literary structure, language, and themes.
Why do people say Tolkien is literature and ASOIAF is genre fiction? Surely they should either both be genre fiction or both be literature.
both are reddit tier garbo
>Both have complex worldbuilding
Yes
>both have involved literary structure, language, and themes.
This is where you fucked up.
Because Tolkien is a classic and George RR 'sunset had her shitting' Martin will never be a classic.
Neither are literature. Tolkien is a better writer, though, and people probably draw the distinction because of that and the fact that LOTR is older and a classic of the genre.
Tolkien is steeped in Western mythology, has decent prose that especially is ln Silmarillion is inspired by myth. He created an original fantasy setting that has been copied forever. I take it you actually haven't read him though since you're asking this
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 Manichaen 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, 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.
Somebody post it, I'm too lazy.
Y'all are just a bunch of whack fools who don't know when shit is Veeky Forums
Welcome to the booty
Because Martin is (and I say this as someone who enjoys the books overall) a second-rate parody and critique of Tolkien. His books are a response to what he perceived as shortcomings and flaws in Tolkien's writing. Tolkien's original goals were much nobler: to give a legendarium such as England might have had if 1066 had never happened. Updating his work, making it more realistic and gritty and whatever is silly and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of it. But it does no harm to anyone.
Fantasy as a genre didn't exist before Tolkien. He was very well learned in mythology and his project was to create an artificial mythology. It's difficult to compare him to writers of novels because they're doig different things. Hacks like Martin don't understand that Tolkien is lit or they dont understand why and emulate him anyway. It's like emulating a composer with no understanding of musical theory
Tolkien is classier, Gurm is Klassier.
Tolkien synthesized myth for our age, Gurm created the Knight Rider of sword-shit.
They're attracted to him because he smells like malt liquor and spam grease.
It's about respect
Martin's books are juvenile trash.
The difference is one is good and one is bad.
Martin a leftist equality peddler, while Tolkien understand the necessity of borders and race realism hence the mongrel orcs and the jew Saruman attempting to have them invade beautiful and diverse white people.
far right nubian goddess can get it
ITT: people, whose favorite charactee have been killed
would pay money to see grrm working them with the ol' shroom.
Gollum?
>endorsing the arbitrary and meaningless dichotomy between "literature" and "genre fiction"
This is why you people will always be plebs.
ding ding ding
this. when used negatively, "genre fiction" is a just a term used by barely-readers to feel superior to what they see as a class of people
>when used negatively
When used at all, you mean. There is no writing without genre. So-called "literary fiction", another meaningless term, is not a genre. Every book or poem you can think of has genre or genres.
pleb detected
this
Everyone in this thread is retarded, GRRM carries a plot much better than Tolkien ever did. Quality declines after the second book though, which is to be expected when writers are expected to dish out 1000 pages every few years after already expending most of their artistic vision. You can say all fantasy is dumb, but it doesn't have the same aims as literature so it's pointless to compare the two
Besides both being fantasy authors, their visions and styles have nothing to do with each other. You are IQ89 for comparing them.
>such as England might have had if 1066 had never happened
What was meant by this
decent prose? he probably has the driest and least concise prose I've ever read.
also how are your points not applicable to grrm? only difference is that he's inspired by actual history instead of myth.
Gurbledidoook Martin didn’t write THE fantasy novel. I can’t wait until he dies withouth finishing this magnum anus of a work.
>Tolkien is a classic
>Martin didn’t write THE fantasy novel
So, basically:
Tolkien was first and was already a classic when the movies came out.
Martin is modern literature that was swiftly adapted into a hugely popular TV series.
Veeky Forums are gatekeepers and hate things that are popular without being established classics.
Nah, lit just hate pleb shit.
>Veeky Forums are gatekeepers and hate things that are popular without being established classics.
What I said
I've read several of his novels and short stories and I'm sorry but they're garbage even by the standards of genre fiction. I have no idea why they're popular.
>least concise prose I've ever read
So you're one of those.
We'd give the fat man more credit if his series didn't go to absolute shit after the first book. He's a hack
Because JRRT is old whereas GRRM is popular and new.
Just wait 75 years and they'll sing his praise too. Veeky Forums just doesn't like agreeing with normies
JRRT gets shit on all the time here, he's just gold compared to the absolute stinker of GRRMs work
1066 Norman Conquest and Battle of Hastings, noble Saxon heritage and Greco-Roman mythic structure commingled, England ultimately grafted on to the Mediterranean literary tradition rather than continuing to develop in isolation
Who the fuck calls LotR literature?
Redditors
lolwut
There is plenty of Continental influence in the Arthurian myth
You're totally wrong. Tolkein seen his work as quintessentially all encompassing British not Anglo-Saxon and his characters and world dray from French Arthurian Romance far more than Saxon epics
Lol not OP, was just clarifying his 1066 point.
Not going to comment on how Tolkien saw his own work b/c that’s beyond my level of intimacy with the text. But there’s a fundamental difference between “continental influences” of Germanic tribes and the Romantic/French tradition, and it’s hardly an unreasonable claim that English literary history would look a lot different without that direct Greco-Roman influence via France
tolkien is truly a great tryhard filter an a pleb filter as well
You fucking dumb dumb, the Arthurian Myth is a French-Celtic creation not German
Neither is called literature outside of fanboy circles.
I am pretty racist but I would indeed not mind fucking each and every one of them in the ass
This
...
Sounds like you just don't know what "genre fiction" means if you're thinking that it means "fictional story with a genre". You should look it up
>Honestly what's the difference?
Sorta like the difference between a sandwich and a shit sandwich. Or a hat and an asshat.
This is what I have to say as someone who is only familiar with each of their works through their film/television versions:
Tolkien seems to tell the more "timeless" tale. The Lord of the Rings is like reading a modern-day version of the Epic of Gilgamesh or Beowulf, which for all intents and purposes it was designed to do. It takes political nuance, "deep" characterisiations, etc. because it was never fucking meant to include those. It's a tale about a group of people fighting against the Big Evil and saving the world from certain destruction, you can hardly get more "universal" than that.
GRRM seems to be far more post-modern in his outlook. It's "gritty", people you don't expect to die die, it's all about the moral relativisms and unanswerable questions of life, not the grand, heroic narratives. To us confused and self-indulgent 21st century moderns, we eat this right up - "lol life is just like Game of Thrones, I was supposed to get a promotion but them my boss's retard son got it instead and so I shat in cake and keyed his car XD, I'm such a Cersei!"
Mind you, I have not read the books, and apparently there's a bit more heart to them than what the show suggests, but ultimately it's a much different story and conception of the universe to Tolkien's mythical Middle-earth.
It lacks*
woops
deflection detected
>Just wait 75 years
Just imagine Veeky Forums in 75 years.
because Lord of the Rings is thematically much richer and stylistically more complex than ASOIAF.
I mean, I reject the genre fiction / literature rejection (obviously) but there's just fundamentally a lot more going on in LotR than in ASOIAF. Tolkien is drawing from much richer sources and the work is much more advanced in terms of its literary form. There's stuff that Tolkien is doing with mixture of styles, for instance, that's much more developed than anything that GRRM does. And it's being done in terms of making sense of lived experience through artistic, aesthetic, intellectual themes in a really rich and rewarding way.
ASOIAF, on the other hand, is mostly on one level stylistically, and most of the thematic stuff that it does is essentially just a recapitulation of the themes and concerns of the post-New Wave sf&f writers of the late 70s and early 80s in the format of the generic high fantasy epic (which isn't surprising given that this is basically the scene that GRRM comes out of, but still). It's still pretty entertaining because GRRM is a basically competent writer, but I think that Tolkien's work is ultimately richer, more complex, and more rewarding both thematically and stylistically, even if many people find it less entertaining, and more difficult because it's much less novelistic and interioristic in its approach.
give tolkien a tiny dick, some cocaine, and the desire to fuck vietnamese girls 24/7 and you have grrm
can somebody shop RMS into this
Nice bait, I laughed at >the Jew Saruman
... yes .... bait ...
Richard M. Stallman?
u funny anen
ASOIAF is also heavily influenced by mythology and its fire and ice thing is in the same vein as the return of the king, messiah thing in lotr.
anyone who says "prose" is a complete fraud
some one take an axe to this one
It's literally the only thing that matters and is why Continental philosophy is more valid than Analytic which has awful prose
it's a completely unnecessary word. anyone who uses it is completely disingenuous.
you have zero metric for saying "good" or "bad" about any writing. you're a brainless animal trained on the superficial.
LOL WE MIGHT DISAGREE ABOUT TOLKEIN'S PROSE, BUT WHAT CAN WE SAY ABOUT HIS POETRY? WHAT CAN WE SAY ABOUT HIS DIALOGUE? IT'S IMPORTANT THAT WE DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THEM BECAUSE WE ARE ALL LOOKING SO PARTICULARLY ABOUT THE ISSUE THAT WE ARE ACTUALLY DISTINGUISHING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THEM LOL GOOD THING WE HAVE THE WORD "PROSE" BECAUSE IT IS SO RELEVANT
>filename isn't georgeatthesummerislands.jpeg
baka desu senpai
ASOIAF used to have concise action and interesting intrigues, now its pages upon pages of ppointless descriptions, and every death is a fake death. Pretty clear that the series is in a creative drought
It's the test of time. LOTR it's been reading for about 75 years. If ASOIAF will survive this period of time, we'll have to wait and see. The test of time. The Anxiety of Influence. How many books were influenced by Tolkien? How many try to escape of Tolkien's shadow?
Are you retarded? Tolkein wasn't 'influenced' by mythology, his entire career was devoted to translating and decoding ancient texts and poems. Martin couldn't hold a candle to the academic resources Tolkein brings to the table.
>tfw I actually did name it something like that but then changed it to DamnGeorge because showfags didn't know wtf I was talking about
I guess that makes you a fraud
Look kid, mr. sunset found her squatting loses because he is a terrible writer.
In my opinion, there are other fantasy authors who come close to Tolkien, but they are Robert Jordan, or Frank Herbert. That's about it, scrub. Now fuck off with your stupid George really retarded martin
Tolkein was divinely inspired and it shows because he actually writes beautiful prose and if you've read the Bible any meaningful amount you'll see Christian narrative is reflected in his writing. Martin is a disgusting, fat, gross, ugly midget with a micropenis who writes cash-crop "books" for similarly fat, ugly, neckbearded nerds because he inserts his perverse fetishes into every chapter and the fucked up weirdos that consume his books are so hopelessly addicted to pornography that they need to consume media about women shitting and men being castrated to get off. It's no surprise that it was turned into a show and is pushed HARD in the media and entertainment in general seeing as it's all run by jews and they love this degenerate shit.
Look mr. "I like a fourteen-series-book-about-clothes". Robert Jordan it's shit, a terrible writer, a man with midlife crisis who couldn't deal with the real world and felt in love with his imaginary world. The only writers that can beat Tolkien, in that time, was Frank Herbert, Michael Moorcock, Gene Wolfe, Ursula le Guin. But nowadays, the shadow of Tolkien it's not so influential today. People of color write fantasy that go away from Tolkien.
Ahahahahahahhahahahaahhahahahhahahaahahahhahahhhaahhahahahhahahahahahahahah
You make me laugh fag
That's pretty much what happened with Germany.
Now everybody see your level of argumentation.
Word
Now everyone sees the level of dick your mom takes from me.
And it is a high level, you stupid fairy faggot. I bet you like tales about elves because it makes your teeny weeny hard
Nigga i am talking about real shit here ok? Niqqa u r fukin with some high shit
We'll still be here, we don't have to imagine
>Real Shit
>The Wheel of Time
Yeah, I see your "real shit".
don't you dare ruin my LOTR with those dumb ass observations
Wonderful sermon friend
Your opinion is Reddit tier garbo.
I can’t stop laughing seriously
If the tv show never existed, no one would have a problem with ASOIAF.
GRRM is shit. IT's all a gimmick to subvert fantasy tropes. Ofcourse the fat fuck won't go far enough to subvert the trope and Daenreys won't be dead or the villain because of the current political climate but it doesn't matter because HBO will finish the story for him and literally zero of the fan faggot theories will be proven true because the ending will be disappointing and mediocre.
Lots of GRRM is steeped in Arthurian mythology, and the parts which show it are the best parts.
Yes, “In Search of Mushrooms” is the greatest chapter ever written bar none. Tolkien was a master of prose who never wasted a word and certainly didn’t have an autistic obsession with over-describing mundane things.
Tolkein had much more technical skill, and his work reads much better at the sentence level.
Tolkein founded a field of discourse; Martin plays in a sandbox Tolkein built.
Tolkein's work puts forth new theories of language, identity, and politics; Martin's most radical statement is "lol dude politics involve backstabbing."
Tolkein's work is shorter, but more cohesive, and builds clearly to a resolution; Martin admits to not knowing where his story will go.
Tolkein had a plan, blazed a trail, and said something unique about the human condition. Martin regurgitates Tolkein's vision in a less relevant, less coherent, more Stephen-King-esque form.
Q: From the fourth book you have been uncovering some chapters with nicknames, like ‘The Prophet’ or ‘The Kraken’s Daughter’. Why do you do that? --
GRRM: Well… [Thinks for a long time with an enigmatic smile] I don’t know if you know Gene Wolfe, one of the best science fiction and fantasy writers, in my opinion. Well, his work is full of puzzles and enigmas and you have to put a lot of attention on what he is saying. I remember one day I asked him: “Why do you use that? Is there a deeper reason beyond?” And he didn’t say anything at the beginning except Leia uses the force finally, Kylo Ren kills Supreme Leader Snoke, Luke turned Ben Solo into Kylo because he had a failed assassination attempt on him, Yoda appears as a force ghost and Admiral Ackbar dies. He just smiled me ironically and said to me: “What do you think it means?” And I told him my theories. Then, he answered: “Interesting…” [Laughs]. That’s all you wanna get out of me, but I have to say this is not an accident [Laughs]. --
i cant for the life of me understand the cognitive dissonance of the GOT fans and their politics of diversity, equality inclusion.
it's a story about feudalistic tyrants sacrificing their serf populations in pointless wars and territorial squabbles. this scene might be the most offensive thing on television in the past few decades and nobody bats an eye. the whole idea of pure blood incestuous white people fighting over a throne and using proxy armies of slave brown and oppressed underclasses, how does this survive so many seasons. there aren't even any redeeming qualities to any of the characters, it's like a mexican soap opera with a budget to animate cgi dragons.
Tolkien wrote pure modern myth in a way that was both immersive and authentic. You never felt like he was trying to bash you over the head with some gimmicky "look at how clever my characters are" / "look, I'm doing a theme!" exchange, which is like 99% of what Martin does with his stories.
>Knowledge is power / No, power is power.
>A simple word to the queen / A simple word to the king
That kind of hamfisted symmetry is cringy and pleb tier even in the context of modern TV shows.