[JackFr]

I don't know. I find both Tolkien and GRRM excellent, but very different. I think it's easy to sell hating on GRRM as a smart take because of the popularity and spectacle of the TV show, but the books were very popular before the show came out.

GRRM cut his teeth as a TV writer and (because of that | despite that) he understands story very well. At least through the first four books his plotting was impeccable, his characters had meaningful arcs, he built excellent tension and resolution and his use of dramatic irony was perfect. His writing was never clumsy and lacked the purple quality that's prevalent in most fantasy. Is his world building perfect? No, but its top 1% compared to the other garbage fantasy being sold.

Tolkien was after all an academic medievalist, and so it's unsurprising that he gets a lot of stuff right (but he also leaves a lot of bits off stage.)

I'll say it's comparing apples and oranges and I like them both.

[civilitty]

Brett is very clear that he’s evaluating Game of Thrones based on Martin’s explicit claims of historical accuracy, nothing more.

He isn’t reviewing Game of Thrones for its artistic qualities and I don’t know why lots of people need to jump to GoT’s defense every time his blog posts come up. Everything you just mentioned is irrelevant to whether or not GoT is historically accurate like GRR claims.

[the_af]

> I think it's easy to sell hating on GRRM

I'm not selling that, and neither is ACOUP.

He's merely evaluating historical realism according to the claims of the respective pieces of work. GRRM claims he set up to write a fictional version and a more "realistic" take on "medieval society"; and claims other depictions are like "Disneyland Middle Ages" -- his words! However, his take is actually less realistic than romantic epics like Lord of the Rings.

Other than that, I really enjoy both. It's a critique, not hatred :)

[0cf8612b2e1e]

> At least through the first four books his plotting was impeccable…

I mean, it was supposed to be three books, so I think the pacing must have gone awry somewhere. Can he tell compelling stories? Yes, but he is like a developer who only wants to work on greenfield projects. As soon as the plot gets messy, introduce a completely new character +setting elsewhere.