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Yes, I also ended there after reading today's https://acoup.blog/2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-horde-part-i-barbarian-couture/ https://acoup.blog/2020/12
by Escornabois 6y ago
Yes, I also ended there after reading today's https://acoup.blog/2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-horde-part-i-barbarian-couture/ https://acoup.blog/2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-hord...
- sideshowb 6y agoCan someone provide the TLDR for why GRRM was wrong to question Aragorn's tax policy? The linked article seems to assume we all know this but I can't see why it's not a valid question.
- Jon_Lowtek 6y agoTolkien was a linguist who created a fantastical medieval world as a place to toy with imaginary languages, then turned fantasy author writing a classical "epic poetry" (word is no longer used in that way) As such Tolkien writes fiction - and can just say "Aragon became king and ruled wise and good" and leave the rest to the imagination. Now GRRM wants his medieval saga to be more cynical - there can be no "wise and good king" - the very concept is foreign to GRRM - everything must have tragic downsides, be a metaphor for a real world thingy and ultimately be about wealth, power, status and sex. Over-analyzing Tolkien looking for such motifs is not wrong, just a bit stupid, because it favors quick and wrong conclusions that miss the obvious - the genre. And GRRM knows perfectly well that parts of the community are anal and take things like this far to serious, while being blind for the obvious. GRRM seems to ask fans to over-analyze Tolkien for "bad aspects" and also immediately jumps from taxes to orc genocide. The whole thing looks like an attempt to smear a business rival, an attempt to describe himself as the better author for having a more "cyncial/realisic" style. (look at the original interview, the question was about power and his characters wielding power badly - and GRRM goes "whatabout aragon")
- sideshowb 6y agoThanks. That makes sense from a literary standpoint. Taking the historical angle I thought the acoup link might have been implying there's something about taxes in feudalism that should have made GRRM's question redundant.
- throwawayffffas 6y agoI would agree with that, acoup's focus is exactly on over-analyzing fictional settings.
- Jon_Lowtek 6y agoacoup just gives a very tongue in cheek quip: "if GRRM knew more about medieval times + lotr, he could answer that question for himself" In some way i agree with that: part of the idea behind ideal heroes is that one should answer for oneselve what a good and wise kings tax policy would be like, but that is not what acoup said.
- baud147258 6y agohe doesn't only do that, there's also a lot on actual history (I've just re read part of the series on polytheism, it's really interesting)
- bawolff 6y agoCalling tolkein a business rivial is a bit much. Tolkein is long dead, anyone remotely interested in fantasy has probably read both authors' books.
- Jon_Lowtek 6y agoit's a metaphor and part of a 1,2-combo, i am not saying they are literally contemporary business rivals.
- KineticLensman 6y ago> Calling tolkein a business rivial is a bit much. Tolkein is long dead The Tolkien estate, however, isn't. And Amazon are spending a lot of money on LoTR spinoff shows.
- alisonkisk 6y agoAmazon's not going to cancel the TV show over internet nerd rants about historicity, and GRRM's financial concerns would have been much more productively supported if he'd spoken up against D&D's massacre of his IP, not trying to massacre Tolkien's
- KineticLensman 6y ago> internet nerd rants about historicity Sorry, I'm just an internet pedant picking up the point that although Tolkien is dead, there are several people / institutions with a big stake in the legacy of his writings.
- Digit-Al 6y agoAlso, without LotR there would very likely be no GoT.
- Razengan 6y agoI only started watching the show when it was almost over because of the hype and checked out the books because I was disappointed in the final TV seasons. I couldn’t tolerate ASOIAF. I can’t recall even one instance of feeling joy or mirth in all of the first book. GRRM comes off as a bitter old and somewhat misogynistic man. There are no normal women characters to be found anywhere that aren’t raped or murdered or otherwise broken in some way. I just skim through the wikis to get the gist of the plot without having to suffer the tediously cynical prose.
- dmurray 6y agoNormally it's praised for having powerful, complex women characters who are just as fucked up and abused as the men. Can't win 'em all, I guess.
- BlueTemplar 6y agoWho wins though, boobs or wieners ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKxg-wca5pM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKxg-wca5pM
- Mauricebranagh 6y agoIts apparently based on the wars of the roses and in the medieval period there was a lot of looting pillaging and all the rest.
- alisonkisk 6y agoAre the men treated any better? It's OK not to like something, but you embarassing yourself by disparagingky dismissing it. One could also say that Tolkien is racist with tediously florid prose.
- Razengan 6y agoI thought I made it clear that I was talking about how I perceived it. > Are the men treated any better? Please. Right off the bat Eddard Stark is a paragon while Caitlyn Stark is kind of a bitch. There are still some male characters with plain personalities regardless of their backstory, whereas the women get their story and their personality twisted up sooner or later. Every female is or becomes weird in some way, to say the least.
- rcxdude 6y agoMore than that, at least as far as acoup is concerned Tolkien knew a lot more about medieval history and his writing is far more accurate than GRRM's, even though GRRM claims his fiction is historically realistic while Tolkien makes no such claim.
- throwawayffffas 6y agoI think it's because the author of acoup interprets Gondor as a feudal state. As such, Aragorn would have little ability to set the tax policy, since he can only tax his vassals a small number of high ranking nobles who in turn set their own taxes on their vassals and so on until the lowest nobles set their taxes on the common people. Additionally since all of these nobles are running their fiefs as de-facto independent states there would be relatively few things Aragorn could even do with the taxes. Now I have read most of a coup and this is my interpretation of why the kings tax policy is a less important question. Of course I am not an expert in history and I may be incorrect.
- BlueTemplar 6y agoBecause the author has explained it before : https://acoup.blog/2019/06/12/new-acquisitions-how-it-wasnt-game-of-thrones-and-the-middle-ages-part-iii/ https://acoup.blog/2019/06/12/new-acquisitions-how-it-wasnt-... TL;DR : Westeros is an impossible mix of early middle age vassal politics and imperial rome / early modern bureaucracy, economics†, and excesses of power. And to boot with pretty much a nation state (but a vassal one ??) in the form of the North without the required printing press. (By contrast, Gondor makes much more sense.) †Also, my own comment : the biology is likely to be very different from ours if the winters are so long - does GRRM ever explain that in the books? (And does he really use multiple "years" for a single season ?)
- dhagz 6y agoI don't think he's wrong to question it, but people have taken that questioning and lack of answering to be a failing of Tolkien and LOTR when in reality that's just not the scope of the book. It's a mythical battle of good and evil, not a true-to-life description of a society that happens to have magic. Both LOTR and ASOIAF try to say something about humanity by holding up a funhouse mirror, just one produces an "ugly" and "gritty" distortion and the other produces a "stylized" and "ideal" distortion.