As someone who is a die-hard fan of Tolkien and all that he represents, and also a newly made fan of Martin's work, I really feel the urge to disabuse you of some faulty assumptions and mistakes you have made. I would love to have a full-fledged dialogue with you in any other format if possible. Let me start with a proper rebuttal from the beginning
1. I do not care much for physiognomic analysis and denigrating people for how they look, but your fault is in assuming that Martin's self inserts somehow relate to his own shortcomings. This is true, but not to the extent that you assume. First of all, let's start with Sam. Sam Tarly might be obese, but his obesity comes not out of him being a lazy turd but being consistently emotionally, psychologically and physically abused by an incompetent, narrow-minded and shallow father. I would like to call your attention to the fact that there exists not one (like in our medieval Europe) but two institutions in Westeros for nobles like Sam who are not martially competent to achieve some level of success and power in their lifetimes. His father repeatedly refused to send Sam to the Citadel simply because of some abstract notion of it being cowardly servitude. If Sam had simply had a more understanding paternal figure (even like Mace Tyrell or Eddard Stark) then he would by now be a happy dude chilling at the Citadel or at some lord's castle. We are then posited the question: is he a fat, cowardly man without self belief lacking confidence due to his own faults, or due to people around him not seeing the goodness that he has? I wonder where you stand on Randyll Tarly
2. Tyrion Lannister is not a good man. Martin has, on repeated occasions, described him as a villain. Any reading of ASOIAF that does not have the Lannisters cast as villains is fundamentally flawed because that is how the series is meant to be read. The main Lannister sibling trio are sympathetic, yes, but they are intended not to be "morally grey" or an equal alternative to the Starks, but foils to the core protagonists, i.e. the Starks. That's why the book starts in Winterfell, not Casterly Rock or King's Landing. They are all also filled with immense guilt and trauma due to, again, a terrible father. Tyrion specifically is not an attempt at a self insert by Martin but instead a study of a character who becomes a horrible unsympathetic villain despite starting a decent man who is cursed by society due to faults that are, again, not of his own design. He is a decently accomplished fighter, has a cunning mind for war and politics, is very learnt in certain regards, is loyal to his house and kin DESPITE knowing their horrible crimes and treachery and stays loyal to them till the bitter end till he is irrevocably alienated by his father. Again, had he not been born a dwarf, he would have had a good life. We do not see any evidence of self-insertism with him, people generally despise him for being an ugly dwarf, one of his KEY character traits is that no woman will love him and the sole woman who had he did nothing to stop her being gangraped by his father's soldiers and then himself. He is haunted by it and copes through a nihilistic attitude that parallels his brother Jaime in the beginning by convincing himself that no woman will ever love him and all the love he has is bought with coin. The revelation that Tysha had loved him shatters his worldview, completely destroys him. Suddenly, he learns that he HAD found his one true love who loved him despite being short and ugly, and he raped her; he subsequently descends to villainous madness. This poignant conflict is what sets Tyrion up to be one of the best characters in the series and a great character of literature in general. Reducing him to a projection of authorial shortcomings is extremely farcical and belies a surface level reading with lenses so tinted with pre-existing biases that they are bordering on being great beach shades
3. Oh what have you made of Varys. How did you not see that he is not some great patriot but a complete liar and hypocrite, exactly what an eunuch is. He is driven not by some greater heroic patriotism but by some crude agenda in his twisted mind where he thinks the deaths of hundreds, good men as he knows himself, is somehow justified because it will result in a wise and noble philosopher-king sitting the throne. He is exactly the kind of man you seem to hate so much on this blog, an idealist activist trying to usher in an unachievable utopia without realising that the price he has paid, the means for the ultimate beautiful end, are unforgivable. Varys is probably the worst character, the most villainous evil person in the story, because his moral compass is intact. He knows Eddard Stark is a good man, he knows that a living farce, an abomination of incest sits the throne, and he does not care, because the end result is the utopia of a perfect king. How many has he doomed to die in a war he could have avoided simply to see his own ends through. "For the Children!" is such a blatant and obvious analogue to "For the Proletariat" that only a person blinded by hate and his own ego and sense of superiority would be unable to see it. Varys is the ultimate deconstruction of any ideological fanatic crusader or terrorist, presented to the reader in a very simple package to understand.
What I can conclude from your essay is that you have not properly understood or read the series to be making such calls, nor can you understand what Martin actually thinks or believes. As for his love life, I will recommend you to watch this video (please not the timestamp):
All in all, I would like to say that I think you should try and overcome your biases and open your mind to the possibility that a beautiful story does not need to be about the noble and the fair fighting the dark and evil, but could also be about the disgusting and weak achieving true nobility by means of their own effort, overcoming the bounds set on them, the damning by fate and society telling them you are supposed to be bad, you are supposed to be an outcast. Martin's work will NEVER be as monumental or seminary as Tolkien's epic; Middle-earth is by far the crown jewel of fantasy literature and everything else is at best an imitation, all living in its shadow. ASOIAF tries to make its own hill next to the Everest of Tolkien, a hill that is as much about the fundamental weaknesses and the nature of Men as is Lord of the Rings. Instead of exploring the good we are capable of, it simply goes the other way, to see how low, how base we can truly be. It opens the lid on the question of how we went from Numenor and Gondor to the modern world. It dares to peek into the shadow of Mordor and ask what goes there, ask what was in the hearts of the Easterlings and Southrons who flew Sauron's banners. It is not a mockery of all that is good and fair in the world; rather, it is about how we make a mockery of it, what our greed, fear, pride, ambition and lust drives us to. Simply decrying it as a nihilistic toxic fat and short man exploring his own inner abyss ignores the fact that such an abyss exists within us all. We all have the ability to be Boromir, Pippin, or Wormtongue just as we can all be Stannis, Jaime or Jon.
PS: Maybe it's because you are older but I find your claim of being tall at 5' 11" hilarious. I am nearly the same height myself (179 cm or 5' 10" and some change) and I have spent my short (heh) life painfully aware of how short I actually am. I think it's due to the Internet and the inflation of standards within my generation (surely you are aware of the 5'11" vs 6' meme) and how men below 6 feet are an absolute no go for several women, but it might also have to do with me being around men who were almost always taller than me. The gist here is that you are NOT tall and you should not act so smug about what is by now a very average height. Especially if you are White or Black.
Maybe you should take off your clown paint, put down that cheeseburger, and figure out what Tolkien really stood for. Fanboying Wormtongue, for shame.
JRR Tolkien translated the Silmarillion from secret Atlantean history. GRR Martin sold his soul to the Devil to write the Reptilian version of our future. Epic fantasy indeed. | r/ASoIaF
I couldn't care less what sob story GRRM gives Samwell Tarly. GRRM is a sadist, and I refuse to care about any fragment of his poisoned fiction.
> Martin has, on repeated occasions, described him as a villain.
Martin is a villain. Reading Tyrion's betrayal of his beloved makes me wonder what the Hell kind of Deal Martin made.
I gather from your reaction to Varys that you have not read Machiavelli's Discourses. The goal of stable monarchy is absolutely a humanitarian one that justifies ruthlessness, if one is willing to kill to save lives. Something Martin obviously does not appreciate, since he hates strong men.
Great link, supports my thesis. Now it's much less dependent on physiognomy to infer that his performance with women was abysmal.
I love dark fiction. That's why I tried Martin. Unfortunately, there is no true nobility his books. Boxxy T. Morningwood has more character, and he's a literal monster.
If you share some of Martin's traits, and his fiction is useful therapy then great. For me it's nails on a chalkboard.
> PS: Maybe it's because you are older but I find your claim of being tall at 5' 11" hilarious.
Loling at nonexistent claims is a sign of insecurity. My brother is bigger, faster and stronger. I'm the smart one.
Average height for my cohort is 5'10.0". I'm 1/4" below 6'. Whether that's tall doesn't matter. Only short men have problems with height.
I know less about height than the vast majority of people who watch sports and can recognize how tall someone is. I learned about height to write about why Martin's fiction sucks.
As someone who is a die-hard fan of Tolkien and all that he represents, and also a newly made fan of Martin's work, I really feel the urge to disabuse you of some faulty assumptions and mistakes you have made. I would love to have a full-fledged dialogue with you in any other format if possible. Let me start with a proper rebuttal from the beginning
1. I do not care much for physiognomic analysis and denigrating people for how they look, but your fault is in assuming that Martin's self inserts somehow relate to his own shortcomings. This is true, but not to the extent that you assume. First of all, let's start with Sam. Sam Tarly might be obese, but his obesity comes not out of him being a lazy turd but being consistently emotionally, psychologically and physically abused by an incompetent, narrow-minded and shallow father. I would like to call your attention to the fact that there exists not one (like in our medieval Europe) but two institutions in Westeros for nobles like Sam who are not martially competent to achieve some level of success and power in their lifetimes. His father repeatedly refused to send Sam to the Citadel simply because of some abstract notion of it being cowardly servitude. If Sam had simply had a more understanding paternal figure (even like Mace Tyrell or Eddard Stark) then he would by now be a happy dude chilling at the Citadel or at some lord's castle. We are then posited the question: is he a fat, cowardly man without self belief lacking confidence due to his own faults, or due to people around him not seeing the goodness that he has? I wonder where you stand on Randyll Tarly
2. Tyrion Lannister is not a good man. Martin has, on repeated occasions, described him as a villain. Any reading of ASOIAF that does not have the Lannisters cast as villains is fundamentally flawed because that is how the series is meant to be read. The main Lannister sibling trio are sympathetic, yes, but they are intended not to be "morally grey" or an equal alternative to the Starks, but foils to the core protagonists, i.e. the Starks. That's why the book starts in Winterfell, not Casterly Rock or King's Landing. They are all also filled with immense guilt and trauma due to, again, a terrible father. Tyrion specifically is not an attempt at a self insert by Martin but instead a study of a character who becomes a horrible unsympathetic villain despite starting a decent man who is cursed by society due to faults that are, again, not of his own design. He is a decently accomplished fighter, has a cunning mind for war and politics, is very learnt in certain regards, is loyal to his house and kin DESPITE knowing their horrible crimes and treachery and stays loyal to them till the bitter end till he is irrevocably alienated by his father. Again, had he not been born a dwarf, he would have had a good life. We do not see any evidence of self-insertism with him, people generally despise him for being an ugly dwarf, one of his KEY character traits is that no woman will love him and the sole woman who had he did nothing to stop her being gangraped by his father's soldiers and then himself. He is haunted by it and copes through a nihilistic attitude that parallels his brother Jaime in the beginning by convincing himself that no woman will ever love him and all the love he has is bought with coin. The revelation that Tysha had loved him shatters his worldview, completely destroys him. Suddenly, he learns that he HAD found his one true love who loved him despite being short and ugly, and he raped her; he subsequently descends to villainous madness. This poignant conflict is what sets Tyrion up to be one of the best characters in the series and a great character of literature in general. Reducing him to a projection of authorial shortcomings is extremely farcical and belies a surface level reading with lenses so tinted with pre-existing biases that they are bordering on being great beach shades
3. Oh what have you made of Varys. How did you not see that he is not some great patriot but a complete liar and hypocrite, exactly what an eunuch is. He is driven not by some greater heroic patriotism but by some crude agenda in his twisted mind where he thinks the deaths of hundreds, good men as he knows himself, is somehow justified because it will result in a wise and noble philosopher-king sitting the throne. He is exactly the kind of man you seem to hate so much on this blog, an idealist activist trying to usher in an unachievable utopia without realising that the price he has paid, the means for the ultimate beautiful end, are unforgivable. Varys is probably the worst character, the most villainous evil person in the story, because his moral compass is intact. He knows Eddard Stark is a good man, he knows that a living farce, an abomination of incest sits the throne, and he does not care, because the end result is the utopia of a perfect king. How many has he doomed to die in a war he could have avoided simply to see his own ends through. "For the Children!" is such a blatant and obvious analogue to "For the Proletariat" that only a person blinded by hate and his own ego and sense of superiority would be unable to see it. Varys is the ultimate deconstruction of any ideological fanatic crusader or terrorist, presented to the reader in a very simple package to understand.
What I can conclude from your essay is that you have not properly understood or read the series to be making such calls, nor can you understand what Martin actually thinks or believes. As for his love life, I will recommend you to watch this video (please not the timestamp):
https://youtu.be/uF96WOuFd7A?list=PLCsx_OFEYH6un7-8efHOg-UL5WdQ9gLSN&t=187
All in all, I would like to say that I think you should try and overcome your biases and open your mind to the possibility that a beautiful story does not need to be about the noble and the fair fighting the dark and evil, but could also be about the disgusting and weak achieving true nobility by means of their own effort, overcoming the bounds set on them, the damning by fate and society telling them you are supposed to be bad, you are supposed to be an outcast. Martin's work will NEVER be as monumental or seminary as Tolkien's epic; Middle-earth is by far the crown jewel of fantasy literature and everything else is at best an imitation, all living in its shadow. ASOIAF tries to make its own hill next to the Everest of Tolkien, a hill that is as much about the fundamental weaknesses and the nature of Men as is Lord of the Rings. Instead of exploring the good we are capable of, it simply goes the other way, to see how low, how base we can truly be. It opens the lid on the question of how we went from Numenor and Gondor to the modern world. It dares to peek into the shadow of Mordor and ask what goes there, ask what was in the hearts of the Easterlings and Southrons who flew Sauron's banners. It is not a mockery of all that is good and fair in the world; rather, it is about how we make a mockery of it, what our greed, fear, pride, ambition and lust drives us to. Simply decrying it as a nihilistic toxic fat and short man exploring his own inner abyss ignores the fact that such an abyss exists within us all. We all have the ability to be Boromir, Pippin, or Wormtongue just as we can all be Stannis, Jaime or Jon.
PS: Maybe it's because you are older but I find your claim of being tall at 5' 11" hilarious. I am nearly the same height myself (179 cm or 5' 10" and some change) and I have spent my short (heh) life painfully aware of how short I actually am. I think it's due to the Internet and the inflation of standards within my generation (surely you are aware of the 5'11" vs 6' meme) and how men below 6 feet are an absolute no go for several women, but it might also have to do with me being around men who were almost always taller than me. The gist here is that you are NOT tall and you should not act so smug about what is by now a very average height. Especially if you are White or Black.
Maybe you should take off your clown paint, put down that cheeseburger, and figure out what Tolkien really stood for. Fanboying Wormtongue, for shame.
JRR Tolkien translated the Silmarillion from secret Atlantean history. GRR Martin sold his soul to the Devil to write the Reptilian version of our future. Epic fantasy indeed. | r/ASoIaF
[[https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiafcirclejerk/comments/zalw43/jrr_tolkien_translated_the_silmarillion_from/]]
I couldn't care less what sob story GRRM gives Samwell Tarly. GRRM is a sadist, and I refuse to care about any fragment of his poisoned fiction.
> Martin has, on repeated occasions, described him as a villain.
Martin is a villain. Reading Tyrion's betrayal of his beloved makes me wonder what the Hell kind of Deal Martin made.
I gather from your reaction to Varys that you have not read Machiavelli's Discourses. The goal of stable monarchy is absolutely a humanitarian one that justifies ruthlessness, if one is willing to kill to save lives. Something Martin obviously does not appreciate, since he hates strong men.
A Song of Ice and Fire: Ned and Ashara | YouTube
[[https://youtu.be/uF96WOuFd7A?t=170]]
Great link, supports my thesis. Now it's much less dependent on physiognomy to infer that his performance with women was abysmal.
I love dark fiction. That's why I tried Martin. Unfortunately, there is no true nobility his books. Boxxy T. Morningwood has more character, and he's a literal monster.
If you share some of Martin's traits, and his fiction is useful therapy then great. For me it's nails on a chalkboard.
> PS: Maybe it's because you are older but I find your claim of being tall at 5' 11" hilarious.
Loling at nonexistent claims is a sign of insecurity. My brother is bigger, faster and stronger. I'm the smart one.
Average height for my cohort is 5'10.0". I'm 1/4" below 6'. Whether that's tall doesn't matter. Only short men have problems with height.
I know less about height than the vast majority of people who watch sports and can recognize how tall someone is. I learned about height to write about why Martin's fiction sucks.