Whose head has gotten bigger: J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin

[Hatoful Dandy]

J.K. Rowling because "HERMIONE WAS BLACK THIS WHOLE TIME!!111"

Hermione was based on Rowling herself at that age and she had a say in the casting process for god's sake!

 

[NN 401]

JK Rowling for sure. Grandma needs to get off the internet and spend her millions doing something else. Not picking fights with Swedes 40 years her junior.

However, I dislike what George RR Martin did to the fantasy genre just as much.
Not him per se but the grim derpifying of the genre as hacks and wannabes follow in his footsteps and substitute all that horrible shit for actual depth and storytelling.

This has opened the flood gates of neck beards and armchair historians who are all like, "hur dur it was really like that back then."
And crowing about realism in a text that has zombies, dragons, and magic anyways. Because if it didn't it would be just a shitty retelling of the War of the Roses.

I hate it as much as I hate the Star Trekification of elves and dwarves as stand ins for Jews and Black people or something equally un creative.

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

However, I dislike what George RR Martin did to the fantasy genre just as much.
Not him per se but the grim derpifying of the genre as hacks and wannabes follow in his footsteps and substitute all that horrible shit for actual depth and storytelling.

This has opened the flood gates of neck beards and armchair historians who are all like, "hur dur it was really like that back then."
And crowing about realism in a text that has zombies, dragons, and magic anyways. Because if it didn't it would be just a shitty retelling of the War of the Roses.

I hear this shit all the time and I feel the people who believe it don't actually read anything. There has always been edgy, violent fantasy and the breakout success of GoT has done jack dick for its popularity. Before the show, ASoIaF was just one of many bloody fantasy works written by a neckbeard who likes violence. Conan, Prince of Thorns, Hawk the Slayer, Warhammer; all that shit was around long before Tyrion Lannister became a household name. Literally the only effect Martin had on the entertainment history is we now have more fantasy TV shows with tiddies in them.

 

[Faggot Gift]

JK Rowling for sure. Grandma needs to get off the internet and spend her millions doing something else. Not picking fights with Swedes 40 years her junior.

However, I dislike what George RR Martin did to the fantasy genre just as much.
Not him per se but the grim derpifying of the genre as hacks and wannabes follow in his footsteps and substitute all that horrible shit for actual depth and storytelling.

This has opened the flood gates of neck beards and armchair historians who are all like, "hur dur it was really like that back then."
And crowing about realism in a text that has zombies, dragons, and magic anyways. Because if it didn't it would be just a shitty retelling of the War of the Roses.

I hate it as much as I hate the Star Trekification of elves and dwarves as stand ins for Jews and Black people or something equally un creative.

The next time I read a fantasy novel about Thorn Blackbane going to Fantasy England with only humans and bitching about how much life sucks as a peasant girl gets raped beside him and the author fellates himself about how THIS IS WHAT MEDIEVAL EUROPE WAS ACTUALLY LIKE I'm going to blow my fucking brains out. How do these people not realize this shit is just as generic if not moreso as high fantasy at least that stuff is fun

EDIT: Like literally every fantasy book at Barnes and Noble is the same now. Blood of Empires or World of Thieves or The Killer Chronicles with some edgy faggot on the cover. Jack Vance is still 100 times more imaginative than these people despite writing his best work in the 50s.

 

[coldfruit]

[l]ike literally every fantasy book at Barnes and Noble is the same now

Exactly — people like Jim Butcher keep winning Hugos for Gary Sue badass magic cop/soldier/detective novels, and there are thousands of others like him. The problem is that the same kind of man writes 90% of these novels, and they all have the same boring fantasies of not being unathletic nerds.

 

[NN 401]

I hear this shit all the time and I feel the people who believe it don't actually read anything. There has always been edgy, violent fantasy and the breakout success of GoT has done jack dick for its popularity. Before the show, ASoIaF was just one of many bloody fantasy works written by a neckbeard who likes violence. Conan, Prince of Thorns, Hawk the Slayer, Warhammer; all that shit was around long before Tyrion Lannister became a household name. Literally the only effect Martin had on the entertainment history is we now have more fantasy TV shows with tiddies in them.

Way to miss my whole point there, and throw in an insult, when I wasn't talking about the show.
Those franchises are wholly different from GoT in many ways, including popularity and writing style, despite an overlap in violence.


You may have missed it but GoT's popularity in general, before the HBO series lit the fuse and blew it up, was having an effect on other Fantasy authors that decided to jump on the bandwagon. HBO was not gambling when they picked up the series because Martin was already a huge NY Times best seller with a dedicated fanbase.

The series evolved into a vehicle by which people can pat themselves on back for reading something considered sophisticated and adult.

Here's a self felating article for ya.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Oh, and correct me if I'm wrong, but far as I know Martin never once made apologies for killing off his characters, but Rowling has been doing that every May 2nd like clockwork since 2015 (or even earlier). Though this may have been this fucking article's fault.

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

Oh, and correct me if I'm wrong, but far as I know Martin never once made apologies for killing off his characters, but Rowling has been doing that every May 2nd like clockwork since 2015 (or even earlier). Though this may have been this fucking article's fault.

Gurm addressed his character killing and said it's born completely with annoyance with how protagonists always escape certain death. This is why I take issue with people saying he does it all for random shock value. Every character Fatty kills is very obviously against the wall, typically from their own doing. Half the characters Rowling killed died off "screen", though granted that was to illustrate how they were at war.

 

[Faggot Gift]

Gurm addressed his character killing and said it's born completely with annoyance with how protagonists always escape certain death. This is why I take issue with people saying he does it all for random shock value. Every character Fatty kills is very obviously against the wall, typically from their own doing. Half the characters Rowling killed died off "screen", though granted that was to illustrate how they were at war.

His reputation for this is way too overblown though. Out of the three most shocking protag deaths, Eddard, Robb, and Catelyn: Eddard's might surprise a lot of people but if you've read Dune he's clearly a copy-paste of Leto Atreides as soon as he does the "falling into the enemy's trap to navigate my way out of it" thing, he just made Leto the main character for half the book to be shocking. In the books Robb isn't a protag like he is in the show and Catelyn comes back as Lady Stonheart. Jon's coming back to life and there's no way he's letting his masturbation fantasy Daenerys die until the end of the books, I'd actually give him some credit if he just let Jon stay dead.

 

[NN 401]

His reputation for this is way too overblown though. Out of the three most shocking protag deaths, Eddard, Robb, and Catelyn: Eddard's might surprise a lot of people but if you've read Dune he's clearly a copy-paste of Leto Atreides as soon as he does the "falling into the enemy's trap to navigate my way out of it" thing, he just made Leto the main character for half the book to be shocking. In the books Robb isn't a protag like he is in the show and Catelyn comes back as Lady Stonheart. Jon's coming back to life and there's no way he's letting his masturbation fantasy Daenerys die until the end of the books, I'd actually give him some credit if he just let Jon stay dead.

This 100%.

Martin doesn't actually kill anyone off that is remotely important. If I recall Robb doesn't even get to have his own chapters like the others, and he was made too stupid to live in a brilliant twist. Jeyne Pool raped that boy.

Many of the fan favorites also die in soap opera off screen ways so the possibility of them returning remains open. The biggest one I can think of before I binned the series was the Hound.


I have always maintained that Frank Herbert was able to accomplish in 500 pages, with Dune, what Martin has been trying to constipatedly do for the past 15 years with thousands of pages.
The basic plot lines between the two are actually pretty similar, and at least the Atreides could never be called stupid by any definition. There were real and tangible reasons for Leto to accept the post on Arrakis, besides the Spice I mean. He just didn't count on the Emperor, and Yueh, aiding the Baron.

 

[Faggot Gift]

This 100%.

Martin doesn't actually kill anyone off that is remotely important. If I recall Robb doesn't even get to have his own chapters like the others, and he was made too stupid to live in a brilliant twist. Jeyne Pool raped that boy.

Many of the fan favorites also die in soap opera off screen ways so the possibility of them returning remains open. The biggest one I can think of before I binned the series was the Hound.


I have always maintained that Frank Herbert was able to accomplish in 500 pages, with Dune, what Martin has been trying to constipatedly do for the past 15 years with thousands of pages.
The basic plot lines between the two are actually pretty similar, and at least the Atreides could never be called stupid by any definition. There were real and tangible reasons for Leto to accept the post on Arrakis, besides the Spice I mean. He just didn't count on the Emperor, and Yueh, aiding the Baron.

I miss that too, when you could just read a fantasy novel, even if it was the first part of a series, and still be satisfied. Dune, A Wizard of Earthsea, Dying Earth... it's almost as though good fantasy/scifi authors realized that maybe people's time is valuable and they'd still like to enjoy a story without feeling obligated to read another million pages of boiled leather beautiful brown nipples and nuncles.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I enjoyed the Harry Potter books, which is why I get so annoyed with this lady turning her wonderful little fairy tale into a platform for identity politics crap.

I've been metaphorically living under a rock for the past decade when it comes to Harry Potter -- which I never really got into in the first place -- so it was quite unpleasant to find out that JKR is yet another celebrity who "sold out" to identity politics. It's like a mind virus.

 

[NN 401]

I miss that too, when you could just read a fantasy novel, even if it was the first part of a series, and still be satisfied. Dune, A Wizard of Earthsea, Dying Earth... it's almost as though good fantasy/scifi authors realized that maybe people's time is valuable and they'd still like to enjoy a story without feeling obligated to read another million pages of boiled leather beautiful brown nipples and nuncles.

Don't forget Pink Masts.

I'm so glad I dropped the series before I had to read about that.

 

[RadicalCentrist]

I have always maintained that Frank Herbert was able to accomplish in 500 pages, with Dune, what Martin has been trying to constipatedly do for the past 15 years with thousands of pages.

Dunno man. I'll take GRRM's dialogue any day over Herbert's. Yes yes I realize he was trying to make it alien but who the fuck says two sentences and analyzes it in character for pages on end?

 

[NN 401]

Dunno man. I'll take GRRM's dialogue any day over Herbert's. Yes yes I realize he was trying to make it alien but who the fuck says two sentences and analyzes it in character for pages on end?

Royalists engaged in high stakes political games for survival who are constantly on edge, observing, and being observed.
No one in the Dune universe we follow ever unwinds, relaxes, or chills. No one is ever caught with their pants down.
*looking at you Tywin...and Tyrion... and Robb... and Catelyn...*
Herbert did that on purpose if it helps to understand.

Though there were one or two times that made me cringe.

"May your blade chip and shatter!!!"

C'mon Frank say that out loud before you send in the final edit...

 

[Butta Face Lopez]

I did like when they cast Oberyn Martell and tumblr lost its collective shit because "THE MARTELLS ARE NOT WHITE!" somehow, and GRRM was like "This dude is Oberyn so shut up yous"

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

I did like when they cast Oberyn Martell and tumblr lost its collective shit because "THE MARTELLS ARE NOT WHITE!" somehow, and GRRM was like "This dude is Oberyn so shut up yous"

The guy who played Oberyn was absolutely perfect. Pretty much all the casting choices were

 

[John Titor]

I did like when they cast Oberyn Martell and tumblr lost its collective shit because "THE MARTELLS ARE NOT WHITE!" somehow, and GRRM was like "This dude is Oberyn so shut up yous"

Wait, were they complaining that the actor is White?

 

[Pablo Birmingham]

Wait until GRRM tries to tell me about how Harry Potter would react to Brexit, then we'll talk.

 

[Mr. Pickles]

JK Rowling, George R R Martin's just a lazy fat asshole, not sure how that's having a "big head"

Rowling knows damn well she could write "Harry Potter And The Burning Sensation", all about a thirty year old Harry dealing with kidney stones and it would be a success, even have a movie based on it, due to brand alone.

But why actually do something creative when you can throw a dart at a list of all the character's you've made, and whoever it lands on was suddenly a Black Transgender Muslim the whole time, even if the books directly contradicted it? God damn it, just thinking about how the Sorting Hat was "Polyamorous and Autistic, the signs were there teh whole time." makes me want to try writing a short story that actually stars a Transgender Autistic Person of Color, I bet it'd be actually readable and enjoyable, have character. I mean it couldn't be worse than the trend of "let's revise all the white males into being things that were never apart of their character!" Hollywood has.