George Martin's latest swipe at J.R.R. Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings

George Martin has made an ass out of himself again because of his jealousy of Tolkien

The fat writing snail known as George Martin has shot his mouth off about Tolkien again. Martin, a notorious procrastinator who still hasn’t finished his Game of Thrones series, thinks that The Lord of the Rings should have had more sex. 🙄

Here is his quote:

I’ll share my thoughts below, but be aware that our own Bros Krynn took him to task in a terrific article:

Yet let us now examine that most pedophilic of propagandists- I mean that most obtuse of writers and ‘post-modernist’ of ‘literary’ ‘thinkers’. George R. Martin.

Martin has a new quote making the rounds over on twitter. Sadly this new quote is dumber than the first. Where the first was him being deliberately obtuse as he sought to sneer at Tolkien, now he reveals his contempt very much openly once more yet reveals more about himself than honestly anyone likely cared to see.

And as people on twitter have poor powers of discernment, and a certain inability to my understanding to know how to counter Martin’s honestly stupid arguments. I find myself once more picking up the baton, and having to counter his boring statement.

First part to analyze; ‘Life is very full of sex’ this is an obvious statement, and certainly true. It is not however it that is so ridiculous, but it does give insight into what Martin values; he does not hold the ideals in the quote; “War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” in very high regard but rather holds up sex itself as a value.

He then says that he admires Tolkien and that; ‘he was a giant of fantasy and a giant of literature, and I think he wrote a great book that will be read for many years,’ this is a very true statement in and of itself.

The trouble though is that this statement is followed by a ‘buuuuuut’ which completely disregards the supposed ‘admiration’ (in reality resentment) of Martin.

But one cannot help but hasten to add if one wished to be petty that certainly Lord of the Rings and even the Hobbit will be read for many a years to come. The Truth is that Game of Thrones and its ilk has already faded from the public memory and will be replaced by the next fad.

I recommend reading Bros Krynn’s full article; it’s worth the time and hits Martin hard.

Now on to my own thoughts, as I have been reading Tolkien since I was an adolescent boy, and that was long ago. My sixth grade teacher introduced me to him, and I have been hooked ever since:

In 6th grade, I had a teacher who did something extraordinary and unexpected: on Friday afternoons, she would read a chapter of The Hobbit to us. I had never read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. I had never heard of them. I know that's hard to believe now, after the six movie releases, with all the massive hype and fanfare.

I remember the first day of her class when she announced she would read to us. I liked reading, but what 6th-grade boy would like to sit there and listen to a teacher read a book? And what the heck was this "hobbit" thing going to be about anyway? The book's title sounded weird, and I was sure it would be tedious to listen to for an entire class.

I could not have been more wrong!

As Mrs. Heinz began reading, I was slowly drawn into Tolkien’s story. I stepped into Middle Earth, and as the class drew on, I found my mind relaxing, and all of the 6th-grade boy stress I usually felt slowly faded as I relaxed and listened quietly with the rest of the students.

For the record, I have read all of George Martin’s “Game of Thrones” books, and I watched the entire series on HBO. I have also just started watching “House of the Dragon,” the prequel spinoff of Game of Thrones. So I am very familiar with Martin’s books, characters, and stories. George Martin is not in the same league as Tolkien, and he never will be, no matter how much money HBO shovels into his pockets for more Game of Thrones crap.

Tolkien’s works were Catholic in nature, and so sex has its place: it exists for the higher purpose of creating families and passing on life to a new generation. Sam and Rosie exemplify this, and Frodo - Sam’s dearest friend and comrade, not his lover - does his part by bringing Sam and Rosie to live in Bag End and by leaving everything to the married couple. Frodo loved Sam dearly, and wanted him and Rosie to have a wonderful life together so, before he left to go into the West, he set them up well so they could have a large family.

Frodo is asexual in the LOTR books, as is Bilbo. Neither of them had a sex life, nor was it necessary for Tolkien to create one for their characters. To do so would not have made a better fantasy world; it would simply have been an unnecessary distraction from the main story. This is important because Tolkien, unlike George Martin, knew how to write a tight story and keep it well-paced and on track for the reader.

Do not get me started about how the Game of Thrones books veer off into gratuitous character excess after book three. Martin wrote a solid trilogy initially, but by the fourth book, he started to lose control of the story and added unnecessary characters. Brienne the Boring is a good example, but there are others, and if you’ve read Martin’s books, you likely know which characters matter and which are just distracting fillers.

Compare that to Tolkien, who managed to keep the Lord of the Rings books flowing from scene to scene, with each character having a purpose, and with the plot never slowing down or getting spun off haphazardly into time-wasting nonsense. One never reads The Lord of the Rings wishing that a particular character would hurry up and die, just to get rid of them so that the story can get back on track. That, alas, is how I felt at various times reading Martin’s books.

Martin’s jealousy of Tolkien is on full display with his comments about the Lord of the Rings and sex. While Martin has certainly had great financial success with Game of Thrones, he knows he will never match the Lord of the Rings in terms of quality or reputation. Moreover, Tolkien actually finished The Lord of the Rings series, while Martin is still unable to produce the next Game of Thrones book, "The Winds of Winter,” never mind the supposed seventh book called “A Dream of Spring.” This is something that I believe galls Martin, as he knows he will not live long enough to complete his own series.

Martin’s petty jealousy of Tolkien does not matter in the long run; his books will be forgotten over time. The TV shows won’t be able to save the books either. The years will roll by, one after another, and Martin will slowly be forgotten. But Tolkien? Tolkien’s books are the closest thing to eternal for fantasy novels, and that is because the books are written in a way that connects them to Christ, because Tolkien himself was connected to Christ through his Catholic faith.

Take careful note of that last part: Christ is the power behind The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s connection to Christ was what gave him the moral vision and clarity to create the world of Middle-Earth and to populate it with characters and stories that reflect Tolkien’s Catholic worldview. Martin, on the other hand, has no faith in anything, and that is why his characters and stories never have any kind of higher meaning to the reader.

J.R.R. Tolkien is the father of the high-fantasy genre of literature, and George Martin is the father of the low-fantasy genre. Tolkien’s books ennoble mankind and encourage people to walk the path of Christ. But Martin’s books drag mankind down into the dirt and seek to lead humanity along the road of the Father of Lies.

Once you understand this, you can immediately dismiss the ridiculous idea that George Martin is “the American Tolkien.” Martin’s books are connected to a supernatural entity, but it is not Christ; it is Lucifer. When you read Martin’s books, you are seeing the world as Lucifer wants you to see it. That is the real difference between George Martin and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Christ and Lucifer offer different paths to humanity, and you can see that if you compare Tolkien’s works to Martin’s. One is rooted in faith in Christ, and the other springs from the lies of Lucifer. If you do not understand what I mean by any of this, go and read the first post of my memoirs, which is called Christ and Lucifer. Then you will understand where I am coming from when I use the terms “high-fantasy” and “low-fantasy” in this context.

Tolkien departed this life long ago and now sits in a place of honor in Christ’s kingdom in Heaven. George Martin will soon depart this life, but his soul will likely go to a very different place than Heaven, and Lucifer will be there to welcome him.

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