| > Here's the tax policy quote in context The context gives further support to the article's statement that George Martin didn't think things through very well before posing his questions. Or even read the books very carefully, for that matter. For example, Martin's questions about the orcs are answered, by implication, in Book VI, Chapter 5: "[T]he King pardoned the Easterlings that had given themselves up, and sent them away free, and he made peace with the peoples of Harad; and the slaves of Mordor he released and gave to them all the lands about Lake Nurnen to be their own." So as long as whatever orcs were left didn't take up arms against other peoples, they would be left alone in their own lands to make their own way. No genocide. (In fact, it's not even clear that Martin understands what actually happened to the orcs and other creatures that Sauron had bred. He seems to think they were "in the mountains"--but that's what happened at the end of the Second Age, not the Third--the orcs that survived the War of the Last Alliance hid in various places in the mountains, and remained threats to travelers in the mountains during the Third Age. But it's made clear that that was because at the end of the Second Age, the Ring was not destroyed and Sauron's power was not forever taken away. At the end of the Third Age, it was. Big difference.) So I also disagree with Martin's take on Tolkien. |