George RR Martin vs JRR Tolkien

What Kind of Men Would an Author Have Us Be?

Recently I scribbled a few thoughts on the contrast between Robert Greene’s teachings on “seduction, charm, deception, and subtle strategy” and William the Marshal’s example of frankness, generosity, and loyalty.

I couldn’t help but note how well a similar virgin vs. chad meme (weak, resentful, falsely sophisticated vs. simpler, stronger, unapologetic) also applies to George RR Martin and JRR Tolkien. In their case the distinction is focused on what kind of stories we should tell and what kind of men should populate those stories. Do we need to make the protagonists “problematic” (a favorite term of virgin midwits)? Or can they simply be awesome?

Virgin Martin

Martin is the kind of writer who likes to “subvert expectations,” as the noxious phrase goes. Seeking to disabuse readers of their quaint ideas about things like the triumph of good guys, he takes a certain ruthless glee in the execution of the honorable Ned Stark, a valiant but simple man like William the Marshall who presumes to “play the game of thrones” against more adept political operators. Martin goes a little further to suggest that Ned’s beheading is in some ways just: such are the wages of naïveté. Honor is thus problematized. What exactly is it good for?

The most compelling character in this story is the roguish Jaime Lannister—a man who will never live down his reputation for burying a sword in the back of the previous king. Even worse, Jaime was supposed to be one of the king’s bodyguards. But wait—a twist is coming. What is later revealed is that the mad king was about to order the mass murder of thousands, and young Jaime was the only one who could stop him. So he did. And now he pays a high price for it, essentially sacrificing his reputation to save countless lives.

And you’ll never guess who ensured Jaime’s vile reputation. It was Ned Stark, the man of honor! Ned’s lack of sophistication (which, to Martin, seems to be almost synonymous with “honor”) has rendered him incapable of understanding the impossible situation Jaime faced: betray the king or let thousands die. Turns out Jaime was just as honorable as Ned all along, and he only became the villain because Ned’s simplistic labels had a quality of self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, you see, Martin not only shows that things are not always as they appear, but he scandalizes the audience with this insight. The problem is that he treats such a lesson as a profound and revelatory, rather than something that many of us were taught in 3rd or 4th grade at the latest.

In a larger sense, Martin attempts to correct the heroic tone of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings saga, arguing that the virtues of Tolkien’s heroes are unrealistic and also probably besides the point. Martin explicitly critiques Tolkien thus:

Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? 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?

The vanity and pretense revealed in these words are almost unbearable. I can just picture Martin and his grad school buddies hitting the bong, munching Chicken McNuggets, critiquing Tolkien for his insufficient attention to tax policy, and then patting themselves on the back for their cleverness. Aragorn’s tax policy?! Tax policy has nothing to do with the story Tolkien was interested in telling. Only a thoroughly modern mind would call for an emphasis on economics in the closing lines of a story about a world on the verge of destruction.

This small-heartedness and self-satisfaction aside, the pressing question is What effect does such story to have on the reader? In other words, What kind of men are we supposed to become after engaging it? Seems to me that Martin’s influence is the kind which pushes a devotee toward the life of a wage slave who lives for escapist entertainment that debunks noble aspirations and instead encourages a skeptical mediocrity. (Insert: frustrated soyjack meme.)

Chad Tolkien

What Martin critiques in Tolkien is what I love best about him: his Chad-like love of greatness.

The Lord of the Rings is unapologetic in its depiction of heroic grandeur. Picking a favorite passage is difficult, but one of the best involves Pip’s awe at the presence of Faramir:

[W]hen he saw the pale face of Faramir he caught his breath. It was the face of one who has been assailed by a great fear or anguish, but has mastered it and now is quiet. Proud and grave he stood for a moment as he spoke to the guard, and Pippin gazing at him saw how closely he resembled his brother Boromir – whom Pippin had liked from the first, admiring the great man’s lordly but kindly manner. Yet suddenly for Faramir his heart was strangely moved with a feeling that he had not known before. Here was one with an air of high nobility such as Aragorn at times revealed, less high perhaps, yet also less incalculable and remote: one of the Kings of Men born into a later time, but touched with the wisdom and sadness of the Elder Race. He knew now why Beregond spoke his name with love. He was a captain that men would follow, that he would follow, even under the shadow of the black wings.

It is to Pip’s great credit that he recognizes the significance of Faramir. And something subtle but wild happens through the course of the story: in proximity to heroes like Faramir, the young and unheroic Pip discovers something great within himself, and ultimately this same fellow who was once primarily occupied with “second breakfast” helps save the world from an impending dark age. Tolkien has something similar planned for us.

I asked earlier about the effect that Martin’s stories have on readers. The same should be asked of Tolkien’s. Faramir, Pip notes, is a man others would follow into the greatest danger. Readers should want to follow too. The hero’s example fires the imagination and makes us eager for an opportunity to prove ourselves similarly worthy. Heroic stories make us better and braver.

What The Times Require

What’s even more inexcusable is George RR Martin’s cluelessness about what time of day it is. Certain messages need to be conveyed at certain times. Consider: are we really at a point at which an overweening sense of honor threatens the common good, thus rendering Martin’s warnings necessary? Looking around, I see the exact opposite—the masses embracing consumer-slavery with willful eagerness—and find myself agreeing with a famous French observer of life in modern democracies: “The great object in our time is to raise the faculties of men, not to complete their prostration.”

Given that situation, some good old-fashioned heroics are just what the doctor ordered. This is what makes the chad Tolkien relevant, not the virgin Martin.