Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with...

>What was Aragorn’s tax policy?
What was King Robert's tax policy, George?

How dare you expect him to live up to his own standards.

Fantasy cliche are stupid. Now lets get the lost prince and his wolf friend to fight the load bearing dark lord so they can save the world and be the wise and good ruler of all the lands.

He didn't really have one, because he sucked at it. Robert is in some ways Aragorn. He was the big damn hero who slew the bad guys and won the day for the scrappy rebels, and then found he was terrible at ruling.
Also when George is talking about taxes, you're meant to take it metaphorically, not literally.
GRRM can be criticized for many things, but his quote up there is fine, it's merely expressing the difference in focus between his work and Tolkien's. Books are the way in which writers converse with each other, and GRRM's clearly got a lot to say. about food

What would be Arya's tax policy?

>THIS COPYPASTA IS SO COOL IMMA REPOST IT

Yeah, we get it, you're a shitposter.

Faces for the Manyfaced God.

>What was Aragorn’s tax policy?
feudalism
>Did he maintain a standing army?
gondors army
>What did he do in times of flood and famine?
his best
>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?
orcs and human became good friends, just like in the dreams of hobbits from the animated version

Engineers and architects?

What about plumb bobs?

Ha ha! Good old GRRM criticising Tolkien without reading it.
>waaaah my books about genocide are darker than Tolkien's books about genocide because he never went into detail about rape and taxes and only left it implied! Tolkien spent three pages describing a tree but i spent three pages describing septic infections so i win! I'm a fat man that never had any conflict in life criticizing a war veteran's description of the horrors of war!

Did you even read the thread?

Architects don't give a shit about rules.
Architects only care about "aesthetic" and making a name for themselves.

Engineers are faggots.

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His point is that things a rarely that straightforward.
People think, and used to think that if the king is a good person, then his rule will automatically be good, but it is such a simplified fairy tale view of the world.

I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with such a world in books or other fiction, but it clearly rubs GRRM the wrong way to some extent at least.

Trying to make fantasy more realistic is completely missing the point. GRRM's "answer" to Tolkien is to make it post-heroic, and by doing so strip away any literary reason for using a medieval setting. Realpolitik with rape and violence could be done anywhere, why swords and dragons? Unless of course youre a Tolkien imitator without the soul.

Tolkien wasn't trying to accurately depict medieval politics. He was writing Anglo-Catholic myth/parable. His themes were gotten across in essence not in autism

>but it clearly rubs GRRM the wrong way to some extent at least.
Because he's a fedora tipping fatass that can't wrap his head around actual fantasy, since everything must be shitty to be good in his eyes. He's that fat nihilist you knew in school who thought that because he was "euphoric" he knew everything. His shit stinks but it smells like roses to him.

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>as much as I admire him, I do quibble with
>quibble

You're blowing this thing way out of proportion.
So the man likes his fantasy more grimy, so what? Different strokes and all that.

quibble is a British way of saying "arguing our knobs off" in polite company.

because steel is heavier than feathers

Well in that case your experience with the word is vastly different from mine, and frankly i've never seen it used in the way you describe.

So your argument is that fantasy as a genre should only exist as classical conservative propaganda?

I mean, you should at least read some LeGuin before arguing that, even if a lot of other people who also haven't will agree with you.

>Realpolitik with rape and violence could be done anywhere, why swords and dragons?

Why not with swords and dragons?

>His point is that things a rarely that straightforward

Which is missing the point of Tolkien's writing. Tolkien sat down to write a book that emulated viking and anglo-saxo saga traditions. He was completely aware that what he wrote was not a realistic book. The inclusion of halflings and wizards should convey the fact that no, this is indeed not an attempt at realistic historical fiction. Inhis own words Tolkien specifically wrote myth.

But not GRRM. No, the genius himself comes fromthe tradition of science fiction, that in its essence tries to examine unrealistic ideas in a realistic fashion. In sci-fi you have to have a good grounding in reality because the whole premise is to examine the effect of the unknown on the known.

So GRRM does the novel (or at least not mainstream) thing and use the methods of sci-fi to write fantasy, drawing heavy parallels to history in order to create an arena in which he can examine the realistic implications of magic, dragons etc.

That's all fine. These are two completely different approaches, and both offer new ideas and contribute to the genre in their own ways. But only an idiot would try and measure Tolken and GRRM by the same yardstick. That idiot, as it turns out, is GRRM. It's easy to see why he does it. It riles people up and creates a little more hype around his work. It's tried and true that you can always talk your work up by talking down other people's work.

GRRM obviously not a Tolkein lorefag, no such thing as an Orc baby in an Orc cradle
this comment is disingenuous at best: the entire drive of the Tolkein universe is overcoming temptation and the sins of the past. he really only pays lip service to the good kings' reigns of peace, most of the time he's concerned with the exact opposite. the moral of the story isn't that good king is good, it's that good is the most difficult path to choose. also kek at all the fat neckbeard nihilist GRRM comments

It's not missing the point, it's simply having different taste in fantasy, i don't see what's so hard for people to understand.

I'm sure even GRRM realizes that the professors works is not supposed to be read as a "realistic" works, the point nonetheless is that such fantasy is not his cup of tea. And you know what? It's totally ok for people to have different tastes in things.

Nigga did you even read the post you quote?

>GRRM obviously not a Tolkein lorefag.

Neither are you apparently.
Orcs "had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar" From Silmarillion

and

"There must have been orc-women. But in stories that seldom if ever see the Orcs except as soldiers of armies in the service of the evil lords we naturally would not learn much about their lives. Not much was known."
From Tolkien's own letters.

Sure, he quibbles (in his words) about aspects of of the books that Tolkien left out, because clearly they were not important to him, but they seem important to GRRM, hence different tastes again.

...

He has another book, The Armageddon Rag, which is all about setting up the self-insert protagonist's dodging of the Vietnam draft as the most awesome and courageous thing ever, that saves the world.

You people need to broaden your horizons and realize there's more original fantasy out there than just the 2 most wanked-over series.

the first two from left to right sound like the books I have about Malazan.

Shit books IMO but then again I hate deserts

Are you saying there's 3 overwanked series then? I guess Discworld would make 4, huh.

HEY, FAT MAN. YES, I ARE TALKING TO YOU. YOUR CLEVER LITTLE WORLD OF "REALISM" AND "SUNRISE FOUND HER SQUATTING IN THE GRASS" HAS BEEN SUPPLANTED BY DUMB AND DUMBER'S VERSION OF YOUR WORLD. STOP ACTING LIKE YOU IS CLEVAR WHEN CRAYOLA WRITINGS GET MORE LOVE AND AFFECTION THAN YOU.

Discworld will never be wanked-over enough (because it is perfect in every way), so it doesn't even count

>the point nonetheless is that such fantasy is not his cup of tea.
Isnt this the same fucking retard who writes books about zombies and dragons

Black Company is better then everything mentioned so far desu

>GRRM: Tolkien ain't shit I'm the one who knows the horrors of war
>Tolkien: "By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead."

I recall seeing a very interesting post that brought up exactly this, how Tolkien was a very sensitive man that immersed himself in stories of "the good old days" to cope with the worst aspects of the Industrial Revolution and the Great War. The romanticism and almost mythic quality of his writing wasn't some misunderstanding on how Anglo-Saxon England actually worked, it was a deliberate choice to create a narrative that did not need to trouble itself with bullshit like taxes or "the horrors of war."

That's true, and I don't think anyone including GRRM argues that it isn't, but it's not a defense.

Just-so tales of small-hairy-footed John Bull and the enduring superiority of (literal) shire conservatism are a particular narrow niche that make a good coping method for an immigrant boy who took to that life like a duck to water and was then torn out and thrown into some serious shit. They make a poor basis for a living world rather than a (too-)firmly-believed utopia, and an utterly dire one for an entire genre of fiction or style of gaming.
The unquestioning acceptance of such gives you /pol/ containment escapees like half of this thread arguing that all fantasy fiction -must- be heroic and all the heroes -must- fit neatly into traditional English ideals.

/pol/ gets blacked posters, Veeky Forums gets MARTIN'D posters

I like Discworld, but it lost the grim edge of its humor in the later books, when he got to liking his characters and stopped doing such horrible things to them.

>The unquestioning acceptance of such gives you /pol/ containment escapees like half of this thread arguing that all fantasy fiction -must- be heroic and all the heroes -must- fit neatly into traditional English ideals.
I wouldn't say that all of Tolkien's stuff is like that, I mean look at the Sil. The elves lose everything they fought so hard for, the world is irreversibly damaged, and everything starts sliding into the shit from there.

Sil is also the man at his most Catholic and least English, and it's definitely his least-imitated work.

I don't have a problem with him having his worldview, and it's one common enough to have a bit of resonance for each of us. It would just be nice if, like he did himself, people recognized it as a particular worldview from particular influences and lots of opinions-not-facts takes.

Jon Snow would actually has *some* of the qualities required for a statesman. See his dealings with the Iron Bank, for instance.

And his dealings with Stannis and the Wildlings. I think there's a point made somewhere that Ned tried to teach Jon statesman qualities alongside Robb, which was a detail I appreciated.

>And his dealings with Stannis
The dealings that directly led to him being stabbed to death? Those dealings with Stannis?

Let's see, an epic Dark Fantasy novel featuring an (unconsciously) incestuous Anti-Hero, the fate of a family over the course of an epic struggle, a morally ambiguous dwarf, loads and loads of black and grey morality, a sinister supernatural force encroaching from the north and a serious downer ending.

Am I talking about A Song of Ice and Fire, or the Children of Hurin?

He learned from Ned, what did you expect.

Children of Hurin, since the fatman's books are not done yet.

No, where he keeps Stannis from settling his men in Brandon's Gift and resists Stannis's attempts to pull the Night's Watch into his war.

It's Jon wanting to abandon the watch and lead the Wildlings to Winterfell that gets him stabbed.

Can I advise you this read? It's enlightening, just like author's analysis of Meereen arc.
meereeneseblot.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/other-wars-part-i-jons-noble-heart-and-greater-duty/

The more I look at this quote, the more I become convinced that GRRM simply hasn't read Lord of the Rings. I mean seriously, let's take a look at Theoden. He's a fairly major character, not first string the way a Fellowship member would be, but certainly about as important as anyone outside the protagonist company gets. He is, by all accounts, a kindly, brave, and somewhat shrewd man. He acquits himself well in battle, bringing down the king or some battle leader of the Haradrim, even at an advanced age.

And he is a *terrible* king. He has somehow been losing a war to Saruman when he has equal to greater numbers, (He, after his losses in the previous campaign, musters 10,000 riders. That's about on par with what Saruman has when he "empties" Isengard, according to Merry), and vastly higher troop quality. Hell, just a much smaller mounted charge during the Hornburg actually breaks Saruman's lines, and even without the help of the Huron's it seems reasonably likely he'd win the battle with Erkenbrand's reinforcements.

But no, he's sitting in Meduseld, sulking over the death of his son. Who, by the way, only dies because he takes a piffling force and rides west to contest the fords of the Isen, because apparently Theoden is to ineffective to have any say on policy at all, which is why his various regional lords, guys like Erkenbrand and Eomer, have to do everything. And his inability to actually muster the resources of his nation, resources which could have easily put paid to Saruman's troops and at least besieged Isengard indefinitely, bring them to the point of ruin.

1/2

All of this is plainly in the text. The only way you could miss it is if you're simply not paying attention. We have other "morally good but terrible ruler" figures like Wil Wheatfoot and Denethor, or at least Denethor before he goes nuts. His "quibble" only seems to applicable to Aragorn's rule itself, which probably has a hell of a lot less to do with the inns and outs of Aragorn's rule and much more to do with the fact that the story fucking ENDED, and for good reason, since the core story isn't about Aragorn. It's not even about the war of the Ring, it's about the fucking hobbits and how they come out of the Shire and despite being soft, weak, and more than a little naive, become the keystone to victory. That's why over 85% of the trilogy is narrated out of a Hobbitish point of view. That's why he includes all those appendices about how the Hobbits know things, and why you have Hobbitish trivia, and assorted anachronisms even compared to the other anachronisms in middle-earth. Aragorn ruling over Gondor, hundreds of miles away, is not pertinent to the Hobbits, so it was not included.

HUH!

But the story was over once they killed Sauron

>describes diarrhea in detail
>spends more time on food than character development
>killed off his interesting characters early in the series and has no idea how to continue it
>won't actually finish the series before death
He's fine if you prefer shit.

Literally.

"I only know ASOIAF from memes": the post.

...

>describes diarrhea in detail
Yes, because it's important for the character.
>spends more time on food than character development
The last two books are spent purely on character development, which admittedly hurts the pacing. Descriptions of food are present, but are nowhere near Brian Jacques level.
>killed off his interesting characters early in the series and has no idea how to continue it
Isn't really true. The only really important PoVs he killed are Ned Stark, Catelyn Tully (who was brought back later) and that's all, really.
>won't actually finish the series before death
True.

Why do idol dances feel so mechanical?

>Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper.
>MEANWHILE IN GAME OF THRONES
>Danerys is a better queen than Cersei, therefore Westeros would prosper under her

He wasn't killed. He was diminished.

GRRM doesn't write for Game of Thrones, user.

Littlefinger "handled" that.
By which I mean he managed to embezzle an untold amount of money out of the treasury and then laundered it through his brothels.
Because Robert was a king that didn't actually want to do king shit. He was probably a fine leader, but a shit ruler. And those are two very different things.

Okay I'm genuinely confused here. Reading that quote and the interview it comes from I don't come away with 'tolkien was bad and his stories we're bad' I come away with him saying what most people here seem to be saying, that he and Tolkien are simply writing different types of stories. Am I missing something or where are people getting the idea that he's saying all stories need to work like that?

>What was Aragorn’s tax policy?
what was ANYONES tax policy in GoT?

He's not saying Tolkein is bad, He'ss saying that he wrote a completely different book than Tolkein

Tolkein wrote Beowulf but larger and with more moving parts. LOTR has fuckall to do with politics and everything to do with culture, peoples. and that invisible tapestry that make nations nations

ASOIF on the other hand it the opposite, it's an intensely character driven work. It's less of a Beowulf style epic but rather a large collection of folk songs that tell of the war of the five kings. It's less setting driven and more plot driven.

I like both, (For a long time I disliked Tolkien's work until recently where I read those old legends he ripped off and finally understood what he was going for) and I think both are kind of the two out of three directions you can go with fantasy literature (Robert E Howard stuff being the third option).

Did baby orcs even exist in the Tolkien world?

Daenerys stayed in Meereen for two reasons. First, she didn't want it to suffer the same fate as other cities she freed, Astapor and Yunkai. Second, she decided that she needs to learn how to be a queen.
The moment Cersei ascended to power after her father's death, she became her descent into a drunken, insane and paranoid whore, seeing shadows of Tyrion in every corner and alienating literally every her ally.

It's not hard to be a better queen than Cersei.

He's also from Bayonne and based Westeros of his fevered childhood ideas of what Staten Island was like. Shaolin Represent where my SI homies at?! I highly doubt he actually knows that definition

What are some good and new(ish) fantasy series?

Yeah?

And even then it becomes pretty clear that Daenerys isn't cut out for it, what with dithering over what to do, not cracking down hard enough on the subversive elements, etcetera.

And yet she's fucking winning on the show because reasons
Fucking D&D

Makes me think of how orcs in LoTR had a sort of modern organization to their amry. Like, orc officers threatening troops that they "will have your number" and such.
Makes me think of an orc officer going to some orc den to tell the nervous she-orc and her litter that her husband is dead.

Kek

I liked Throne of the Crescent Moon quite a bit. Also the Dabir and Asim books by Howard Andrew Jones is the closest I have found to a new author that does Sword and Sandal well

The peace was real, user, and Daenerys was right about not cracking down. Then again, cracking down would also be a good option.

sell me on it

I wouldn't go that far. The Orcs have followed the Dark Lords for so long, I doubt they have much of a culture that doesn't spring from them. And I can't imagine Sauron or Morgoth could really be bothered with teaching their minions art. Don't want to make them think that they could ever have a way out.

This is our town, Scrub!

I mean, she'd already fucked up by demanding that 163 of the officials be executed, basically just to make herself feel better, without actually checking if any of them had anything to do with the crucified children.

Then, she allows the surviving officials/aristocrats (who now mostly have a grudge against her) to go on as before without really doing anything to them, which is where a low-level revolt comes from. If she'd cracked down hard, preferably via emphasizing the "dragons" part of "anyone who rebels will be fed to the dragons" then she might have secured a stronger foothold.

>which is where a low-level revolt comes from
Yeah, but she also ended it overnight, when she negotiated a peace. Being a peacemaker is better than being a butcher.

she has dragons
cersei has a what?

A ceasefire at best, and only via marrying one of the aristocrats, who shows signs of ignoring her reforms himself. Would that peace of hers last, do you think?

Which one?

Throne of the Crescent Moon is about this old sorcerer who want to return to drink tea and stay indoor where the heat is off of him. problem is is he's constantly getting called out to go fight monsters in the outer areas of the city. He is joined by this kid that kinda showed up at his doorstep and is a part of a Dervish-esque organization of swordsmen that are fanatical in the devotion to eradicate evil. (The playoff between the old guy's cynicism and "I'm too old for this shit" joking and the young guy's religious zeal for taking out monsters is a major source of humor in the book)

Anyway so like one day thy are called out to take out some pesky bone ghuls that are murdering people outside the city and run into this tribesgirl that can shapeshift into a jaguar and who is a total hick when compared to our main characters due to the whole nomad thing and she's all "Whoever made these ghuls is an asshole and because I'm a Bedouin expy I gotta get revenge" and the two main characters are like "k senpai come back with us and we'll ttly figure this shit out" and things escalate from there as things often do. The side plot is all about this douchebag Sultan that runs the place like an asshole and this legendary folk hero called "The Falcon prince" who is trying to overthrow the sultan and put a good ruler in charge of this city for once (Every character is lowborn and the author has stated he did it on purpose because he was tired of fantasy always being about nobles)

She should have just killed all of the nobility. It's well established that they're more or less like the IRL Emrati - they do no labor and have no skills. You want their degenerate culture gone? Start with them.