Navy in Middle-Earth
warfantasy.wordpress.com
warfantasy.wordpress.com
For a related article see, e.g. this one: https://acoup.blog/2019/06/14/collections-the-siege-of-gondo...
It has a bit of a different angle in that it critiques works of fantasy in terms of realism, feasibility and consistency in a pretty nitpicky way (the hint's in the name, really). Still I find it mostly good-humoured.
If you peruse the many articles of this blog on both works of fiction, you'll realize the author (a scholar on medieval history) thinks Lord of the Rings is more realistic (in scope, military logistics, scale of the armies and even tactics) than Game of Thrones. This was surprising to me, because GRRM "sells" Game of Thrones as a fantastic [1] but "more realistic" [2] take on the Middle Ages. ACOUP takes him to task, because almost every "realistic" detail in GoT is, according to him, wrong. This also includes the purported cruelty of nobles towards the populace, GRRM's take on religion, etc.
Let me delve on that last point: ACOUP asserts that GoT's take on religion is wrong. In GoT -- especially in the TV show, but also in the books -- the take on religion of many major players is cynical. While some characters are fanatics or really believe, others are skeptical. Most of the Lannisters seem skeptical of any gods. Cersei goes so far as to blow out the Sept (cathedral), an act that in the real Middle Ages would see her hanged, burned or beheaded, and would lose her the support of her army. ACOUP makes the point that the nobility and kings of the Middle Ages really believed in their religion and gods!
----
[1] after all, it's a fantasy work with dragons and zombies. Then again, LotR has orcs, elves, ghosts and wizards and it manages to be more realistic!
[2] George Martin: "I wanted my books to be strongly grounded in history and to show what medieval society was like, and I was also reacting to a lot of fantasy fiction. Most stories depict what I call the ‘Disneyland Middle Ages’—there are princes and princesses and knights in shining armor, but they didn’t want to show what those societies meant and how they functioned."
I think that the main difference between LotR and GoT is that LotR is told in a style similar to the actual legendary epics and epic sagas that we have from history. These stories (and in particular the written versions that survive for us) were about the nobility and for the nobility. Because of this many everyday details are assumed and skipped over, and unpleasant or ignoble facts are ignored or glossed over.
So for example LotR features half-orcs as creatures, and the text describes their creation as Saruman's most evil act. But it doesn't explicitly spell out that this likely involved rape of human women by male orcs. Whereas GoT directly describes Daenerys being raped from her own point of view.
This doesn't mean that LotR is less realistic. It describes a similar set of events as GoT, but they are presented in a different way.
I think this is what people are sensing when they say LotR is 'less realistic', even though GoT is actually the worse match to historical reality.
In GoT, it would be several pages/several minutes of screen time.
It's why I could never get into the latter. Just goes for the absolute, lowest common denominator every time, but apparently that's what makes "grown up, serious" fantasy.
> But among all these evils there is no record of any among the Elves that took another's spouse by force; for this was wholly against their nature, and one so forced would have rejected bodily life and passed to Mandos.
So I think this raises some doubts about whether Tolkien intended to imply rape in Celebrian's case rather than some other evil.
That doesn't sound so dramatic, IMO. I wonder if there's a generational component there too...? Maybe in Tolkien's time, explicit gore and violence were less common. Then since modern video games and TV shows upped the ante, maybe RR Martin had to be more explicit to create the same emotional effect that Tolkien's subtle hinting used to have on his audience? I dunno.
Yeah, ASOIAF is very much a deliberate reaction against both the tropes (pure good vs. pure evil, characters whose morality or immorality is etched in stone disconnected from events and circumstances, etc.) and the romanticization in what is told and what is elided in the style that LotR deliberately leans into.
> This doesn't mean that LotR is less realistic
The tell vs. imply distinction isn’t a matter of realism, true, though other aspects of the difference, particularly around characterization, very much are, and those are deliberate stylistic choices on both sides.
Examples being: kings believed in their own religion, they didn't randomly mistreat peasants, nobles and lowborn alike followed tradition, people weren't cynical about religion in private, and kings depended on their vassals to enforce their will, so mistreating vassals (at least, as the norm) was a no-go and everyone understood this. Other examples are about military logistics, the system of bannermen and what duties and obligations it entailed in both king and vassals, which are more realistic in LotR and less in ASOIAF (or so the blog claims).
I think ACOUP's main point is that GRRM is projecting modern sensibilities into his characters, which is valid but doesn't result in a less fairytale, more realistic depiction of medieval society, like GRRM claims was his intention!
Of course Lord of the Rings is fantasy, and sanitized (At least it doesn’t lie about it).
If we’re starting at Lord of the Rings and adding elements to get more realism, I’ve always thought Monty Python’s Holy Grail would be a better pickup than GoT. Everything is covered in shit in both, which is something Lord of the Rings really lacks, but the people in Game of Thrones are too clever and able to keep together these grand schemes. Python adds the stupid that defines us.
Right before the Middle Ages there are many examples like it, for example Charlemagne and his line. If they and the pope disagreed it was the pope that got the short end of the stick. There was also many example of viking kings and warlords converting to christianity and back again.
Right after the Middle Ages Henry the eight is another example.
It's not "my take", it's ACOUP's (though, to be fair, I'm convinced by it): https://acoup.blog/2019/06/04/new-acquisitions-how-it-wasnt-...
Second, GoT seems to fit within the Late Middle Ages / Early Modern period. In fact, ACOUP points up that the armor worn on the TV show at times looks to be Early Modern / Renaissance! If this was Early Middle Ages, there would have to be a lot more chainmail and far less plate mail. The Early Modern period (not the Middle Ages) would make more sense for acts of sacrilege shown in GoT because it also saw the rise of professional armies who didn't act because of deference to neither church nor king, but because of pay. But besides Bronn and the mercenary companies outside Westeros, most of the armies within Westeros proper seem to be motivated by allegiances to noble houses, and so they must defer to tradition and religion.
Third, ACOUP is talking of religion in general. There are some characters in GoT that believe in their religion (possibly some of the Starks and their "Old Gods", Melissandre and her Lord of Light) but most of the world of Westeros is skeptical of any religions at all, not just the mainstream one. But as ACOUP points out:
> "This is the mistake my students make – they don’t believe medieval Catholicism or Roman paganism, and so they weakly assume that no one (or at least, none of the ‘really smart’ people) at the time really did either. Of course this is wrong: People in the past believed their own religion."
The vikings before converting to Christianity had their own gods, and they truly believed in them. In contrast, most of the nobles of Westeros don't believe in any gods, pagan or otherwise. Which a serious historical mistake if one is trying to reflect -- albeit with fantasy divergences -- "real medieval society".
I bet you Charlemagne truly believed there was a god judging him.
In any case, his depiction of "Asian" nomadic cultures is hilariously unrealistic as well. I recommend ACOUP's chapters on the Dothraki; their culture doesn't fit anything from the real-world, be it Huns, Mongols or Native Americans, all quoted by GRRM as references (so it's valid to mention if he misused them).
Someone mentioned GRRM seems to be using stereotype, not reality, as reference! Which is fine and dandy, except GRRM claimed he was aiming for realism...
Sure. I'm just noting that having cultures that don't care too much about religion is not unprecedented in the actual history.
We are discussing GRRM's fictional depiction of a "realistic" middle ages, with a focus on Europe but some side-dishes of Asian steppe cultures -- which according to ACOUP he also gets wrong. Which wouldn't matter if GRRM didn't assert his depiction was more realistic!
----
[1] George Martin's words.
Each region had its own sets of gods and traditions. Even the somewhat unified Confucianism is more of a philosophical teaching, and it works just fine alongside the traditional Chinese religions. People understood this and generally were content to leave each over in peace over the religion.
Compare this to Europe and Middle East where people (still!) wage actual holy wars over doctrinal matters.
GRRM's world is closer to China than to Europe in this regard.
Even with the influence of Buddhism, that was only tolerated as a philosophical system of self improvement. When the Dalai Llama became an actual political threat, he was replaced with a puppet.
Modern China is pretty much an atheist state that is pretty religion unfriendly, but I think that's a lasting consequence of the Cultural Revolution and not something from their older history.
I also don't see how a army with allegiances to noble houses must defer to tradition and religion, how would you then explain a king converting to christianity (or the other way)?
Why then would GRRM claim his Westeros was "to be strongly grounded in history and to show what medieval society was like" then? A society with the church "broken" by the kings and without any religion to supplant it wouldn't be like medieval society at all!
It would make more sense for GRRM to claim his take is transposing modern sensibilities to a fantasy middle ages world. That would work. His characters are cynical like a modern person would be, rather than like a medieval person. But GRRM is not claiming this as his intent, which is a pity.
> I also don't see how a army with allegiances to noble houses must defer to tradition and religion, how would you then explain a king converting to christianity (or the other way)?
Well, what religion did Cersei claim was the true one then? Kings and queens converted to other religions, they didn't become atheists. And frequently this was divisive anyway, sometimes leading to civil war. And let's remember that Cersei was already on shaky grounds, she was a humiliated woman whom people didn't respect and were stoning moments ago! An already unpopular woman burns down the most important religious building and ascends to queendom on which grounds exactly?
Which gods should the Lannisters pray to, now that Cersei destroyed the Sept? Are they not deeply religious, like in true medieval society?
GoT have a world with magic and dragons, I think it would be completely unrealistic if that world ended up with a religious life exactly as ours in the Middle Ages.
Again, let me stress this is ACOUP's opinions, not mine. I do find them convincing, though.
> GoT have a world with magic and dragons, I think it would be completely unrealistic if that world ended up with a religious life exactly as ours in the Middle Ages.
George Martin himself waves away this explanation, that because "it has dragons" then it cannot be realistic, consistent (which mind you, GoT is NOT) or follow the conventions of medieval society. (I cannot find the exact quote, but I'm sure you can if you search the web).
It's not that GoT doesn't fashion a religious/family/feudal life exactly like in our real middle ages -- it's just that he consistently deviates from it so that the end result is less realistic than the romantic epic of Lord of the Rings, while also at the same time claiming his vision is more realistic! And he did claim this.
He claims to have based the Dothraki on the Huns, Mongols and other steppe people, yet they behave nothing at all like them.
He claims to have based the Faith of the Seven on the Catholic Church, yet nobles don't treat it like such and they even blow up the Sept with no serious repercussions.
Westerosi are skeptical of gods and the supernatural, when in the real Middle Ages most would believe in both. In fact, it's almost like Westerosi have a modern mindset, rather than a medieval one!
And so on and on.
You can't expect people to believe as they would in our world, given that their world is different. If invaders with dragons took over England in our Middle Ages and crushed the church, peoples religion would realistically also evolve very differently from what it actually did.
The vikings who massacred Christians had their own religion. What's the Targaryen's? What's the Lannisters'?
You simply cannot claim to be depicting a realistic medieval society (with magic), as Martin does, without this. And many other details he got wrong.
By Martin's own admission, dragons and magic are not an excuse for being inconsistent or "unrealistic". Vast armies cannot be raised and teleported to battlefields just because there are dragons. Dragons are no excuse for blowing up a major cathedral with no consequences.
----
[1] If you watch HBO's prequel, it's even worse: at a time when the Targaryens had plenty of dragons, there were warring factions within them, all vying for the throne, each claiming to have the "rightful" heir. But where's the legitimacy of each claim supposed to be derived from? Kings claim "rightful" inheritance through lineage, but somewhere up the line there must be a divine right to rule. So they may have disagreements about whether it's matrilineal or patrilineal (cue Henry V and the Hundred Years War), or whether someone was a bastard, but ultimately every feudal king though he had a god-given right to rule. Otherwise what would the different claimants be arguing about?
It's not just religion (which, by the way: why do the dragon-riding Targaryens also do NOT believe in zombies or gods?).
It's also the feudal system. It didn't work like in GoT, as Brett from ACOUP shows. Medieval tactics (without dragons, how much of the battles happen in the books and show) don't work like that either. The bannermen system cannot sustain such large armies. Kings didn't randomly mistreat their populations. Logistics don't work like in GoT -- and that's current real world logistics, not even medieval! Steppe people weren't like the Dothraki. And so on and on.
Martin's world is pretty cool (to me, anyway) but is in no way more "realistic" than the Disneyland worlds he complains against.
GRRM cut his teeth as a TV writer and (because of that | despite that) he understands story very well. At least through the first four books his plotting was impeccable, his characters had meaningful arcs, he built excellent tension and resolution and his use of dramatic irony was perfect. His writing was never clumsy and lacked the purple quality that's prevalent in most fantasy. Is his world building perfect? No, but its top 1% compared to the other garbage fantasy being sold.
Tolkien was after all an academic medievalist, and so it's unsurprising that he gets a lot of stuff right (but he also leaves a lot of bits off stage.)
I'll say it's comparing apples and oranges and I like them both.
He isn’t reviewing Game of Thrones for its artistic qualities and I don’t know why lots of people need to jump to GoT’s defense every time his blog posts come up. Everything you just mentioned is irrelevant to whether or not GoT is historically accurate like GRR claims.
I'm not selling that, and neither is ACOUP.
He's merely evaluating historical realism according to the claims of the respective pieces of work. GRRM claims he set up to write a fictional version and a more "realistic" take on "medieval society"; and claims other depictions are like "Disneyland Middle Ages" -- his words! However, his take is actually less realistic than romantic epics like Lord of the Rings.
Other than that, I really enjoy both. It's a critique, not hatred :)
I mean, it was supposed to be three books, so I think the pacing must have gone awry somewhere. Can he tell compelling stories? Yes, but he is like a developer who only wants to work on greenfield projects. As soon as the plot gets messy, introduce a completely new character +setting elsewhere.
Wtf this is nonsense. I'm not even a general, and I know to maintain my supply lines.
I lost a lot of interest after that happened. Seemed quite nonsensical.
The thing that stood out to me in my most recent reread of LOTR is the complete and utter lack of farms. Outside of Farmer Maggot in the shire, the main characters almost never encounter random, normal people living outside of the main city centers. It feels like an empty world waiting to be explored, not one that has been heavily populated for thousands of years.
Acoup does point out that the pelenore (sp? The ones outside Minis Tirith) fields in the book has farms and small towns, but the movies just make them flat nothings.
Though true, the characters don't I retract with said farmers, who have mostly evacuated at this point.
- The civilisation of men east of Isengard apart from the Shire was more or less destroyed by the Witch King of Angmar before the books.
- Frodo and Sam spend books 2 and 3 wandering swamps, desolate mountains, and eventually Mordor (specifically avoiding roads and civilisation to avoid being caught).
- The rest of the fellowship spends book 2 in Rohan - most of their economy seems to be rearing horses on pasture rather than growing crops (not an uncommon situation in the pre-modern past)
- They then spend book 3 in and around the front lines of the war between Gondor and Mordor. Gondor is also explicitly depopulated - it had been ravaged by plague in the years beforehand. That’s why Gondor is so weak.
Tolkien’s world probably could have contained more of a realistic agricultural economy, but it does seem that the reason the world outside of the Shire feels so desolate is that Middle Earth is more or less in the process of total societal collapse.
Also Elves are weird and it’s not entirely clear what they eat or how they maintain their civilisation in the forests…
This isn't casually obvious from the text, as The Shire and Bree are near pastoral paradises within their borders, and Gondor is a functioning kingdom (the farms surrounding Minas Tirith are mentioned briefly in the book), and we all remember the Lonely Mountain, Laketown, and Dale from The Hobbit. But the vast majority of Eriador used to be inhabited, but no longer is, at least not with any density.
Arnor and its successor kingdoms are gone, the great dwarf-Kingdoms are gone (with the Lonely Mountain as a very local and very recent successor-state), the Elves have dwindled to the level where the Havens and Rivendell have no military capability, roads have crumbled, and almost all the cities and towns of Men outside of Gondor (and its allied state of Rohan) have been in ruins for centuries.
> "the townlands [of the Pelennor] were rich, with wide tilth and many orchards and homesteads there were with oast and garner, fold and byre, and many rills rippling through the green from the highlands down to the Anduin.” (Rotk 23)
GRRM was... a script writer. He manages to get some of the details correct, but once you scratch below the surface, his worldbuilding largely falls apart.
It is one of the downsides of using HoME as a source, it is a collection of rough drafts over the course of Tolkien's entire life and the textual history, and evolution, is a critical part of discussing anything you find within especially the earlier volumes.
You will find those that trip over themselves to defend ROP (and new Star Trek, et. al.). This is the target audience. I am not sure what convinced this audience that the new content is good - Part of me suspects it's mostly Stockholm syndrome. Those without the courage to adopt a more stoic attitude towards life.
I feel like if more people would quit consuming pointless shit all the time, we might wind up with better pointless shit. As it stands, anything will generate some amount of revenue when you launch it on Netflix. This is really bad game theory for high quality content producers and the risk/reward tradeoff they have to negotiate with publishers.
"We need 2 years to run the traps on lore" and "casting will be an on-going and convoluted process" == you are kicked out of the Netflix green light meeting without any additional courtesy.
The opening theme alone represents the music of the ainur so well, I never skip it.
The tragedy is that the source material for the second age is so great yet they chose to take the show in a baffling and arbitrary direction, almost completely decoupled from the existing lore.
That’s the silliest thing I read today.
For instance attention to detail was a pretty important theme in Tolkien’s works. He was pretty strict about timeframes, military planning etc. in Amazon’s show everyone seems to have a teleportation device, boat hulls breaks the law of physics considering how much stuff you can fit into them and “Galadriel” is the best swimmer in history multiplied by 100…
It pretty much a cheap 90s fantasy tv show with an inflated budget that takes itself way to seriously than it has any right to.
From the moment it opened with elf-children acting like orcs, it was clear not only that she showrunners had missed the mark, but they lacked enough of Socrates "beginning of wisdom" that they couldn't even understand how they were missing it
The series has many issues, but the showrunners not understanding the works of Tolkien is not one of them. Many of the issues arise from the main premise of the series. Like with many recent big-budget adaptations, the showrunners are retelling the story from the perspective of a subset of 21st century Americans. If you are not in the target audience, many things may feel off.
Also, it's good to remember that big-budget adaptations usually fail. Any story worth adapting is likely exceptional. Because you are retelling the story in a new format, you usually have to change many things. But the new things you create are unlikely to be exceptional, because exceptional things are rare.
See: Asimov's "Foundation"
Just read up on how much influence Sir Christopher Lee had on Lord of the Rings movies.