Refreshing a genre

[Bramblethorn]

Yes. Not really sure what you'd call the genre, but something along the lines of "The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe". I started a novel along those lines in terms of being able to escape life and go to another realm. But I've only gotten a few chapters written. Just seem kind of stuck.

The genre is called portal fantasy.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

True. But if we're talking 'now' (for the sake of argument), you could say that Tolkien's revival of the genre has run its course.

There had certainly been fantasy before Tolkien and - perhaps - one could say that direct interest in Tolkien has dropped of late. Yet the Don's hand can be seen almost everywhere. Consider online RPGs - any of them in the fantasy genre almost require reading LOTR for background. One could make a claim that the entire Harry Potter world owes something to Tolkien. Game of Thrones has already been mentioned. There are any number of others. One could go so far as to link the hugely-popular Discworld to Tolkien's lead.

No, I think his influence remains very strong today.

There are other genres where this has happened. Look at just two movies. Censorship was ubiquitous and harsh, even into the 60s. Then came a curious Swedish film, I am Curious (Yellow) in 1967, featuring explicit sex and nudity. That got a lot of public attention, but it was Deep Throat five years later that finally moved erotica from sleazy 8mm B&W movies in basements to proper matrons queuing in public to watch in mainstream theatres. Today, the one is all but forgotten and the other lingers only as a phrase (neither were particularly well done, truth be told), yet their influence still ripples across our society.

 

[lovecraft68]

I am not even mad at GRRM for his crappy story - it was entertaining for the first few books. When he got it into a HBO story he just went "heck, why finish writing a mediocre fantasy epic when I can meander around about a rape and fighting story adn drop the plot - cool, let's do that"

Lots of peoples write crappy epic fantasy (hides her notes) but few go so far as to turn their story into the poop that became GoT cause the moneys was worth more than the story.

If that's what he's about, it's on him.

Does peoples like what his story became? Is on him - he was active in the making of GoT (and quit working on the story itself sos he could work on the show. sos can't excuse the show for not being 'true to his vision').

JRRT finished his very wordy stories, and didn't alter his ideas to make moneys.

Hammer to the nail right here.

The first couple of seasons were good. There was some heavy violence, rape gore, but it all seemed to fit then as always it became, people are into this let's overdo it.

HBO made a huge mistake launching this show and having Martin involved with it before the books were finished. He's missed several deadlines and even released other non GOT related books all the while running around on his victory tour. In that sense, I admit its hard to judge because who knows how that much success would effect anyone.

But the initial story which was excellent sold out for gore galore and ratings. Hollywood never had nor ever will know when enough is enough of something. Then again....with the herd like mentality of TV obsessed binge watchers I guess they're giving people what they want. The same.

 

[lovecraft68]

There had certainly been fantasy before Tolkien and - perhaps - one could say that direct interest in Tolkien has dropped of late. Yet the Don's hand can be seen almost everywhere. Consider online RPGs - any of them in the fantasy genre almost require reading LOTR for background. One could make a claim that the entire Harry Potter world owes something to Tolkien. Game of Thrones has already been mentioned. There are any number of others. One could go so far as to link the hugely-popular Discworld to Tolkien's lead.

No, I think his influence remains very strong today.

There are other genres where this has happened. Look at just two movies. Censorship was ubiquitous and harsh, even into the 60s. Then came a curious Swedish film, I am Curious (Yellow) in 1967, featuring explicit sex and nudity. That got a lot of public attention, but it was [I]Deep Throat[/I] five years later that finally moved erotica from sleazy 8mm B&W movies in basements to proper matrons queuing in public to watch in mainstream theatres. Today, the one is all but forgotten and the other lingers only as a phrase (neither were particularly well done, truth be told), yet their influence still ripples across our society.

If you consider being filmed at gun point by mafia investors moving away from sleazy. But I get your point, it got X-rated material some popularity and paved the way for more movies like it and it kept going from there until the internet absolutely blew up the industry.

To me Kay Parker's Taboo may have been the next most influential porn movie. It made fantasy incest into something people had to admit turned them on and was the beginning of what is an enormous market that people...still won't admit they like.

be interesting to see how the public responds when Pence/Sessions try and ban all adult material. We'll see if porn has become acceptable enough that people will defend it(even under freedom of speech) or put their heads down and willingly go back to the time you were speaking of.

 

[FaeLissa]

Hammer to the nail right here.

The first couple of seasons were good. There was some heavy violence, rape gore, but it all seemed to fit then as always it became, people are into this let's overdo it.

HBO made a huge mistake launching this show and having Martin involved with it before the books were finished. He's missed several deadlines and even released other non GOT related books all the while running around on his victory tour. In that sense, I admit its hard to judge because who knows how that much success would effect anyone.

But the initial story which was excellent sold out for gore galore and ratings. Hollywood never had nor ever will know when enough is enough of something. Then again....with the herd like mentality of TV obsessed binge watchers I guess they're giving people what they want. The same.

And the books was MUCH better than the show - until he had to write the next parts (books 4,5, and the ever-promised-but-never-delivered-6). Then the books became about the show.
As a not-watcher - eeww - didn't even make sense till peoples told me what was going on in the show. Has no respect for GRRM - he had near-dictator power over the show and approved of the slide down to crap AND stopped working on the story itself to oversee the slip into the sewer. He isn't upset about the mess it became sos, as author and whatever title the studio gave him, he's complicit.

 

[lovecraft68]

And the books was MUCH better than the show - until he had to write the next parts (books 4,5, and the ever-promised-but-never-delivered-6). Then the books became about the show.
As a not-watcher - eeww - didn't even make sense till peoples told me what was going on in the show. Has no respect for GRRM - he had near-dictator power over the show and approved of the slide down to crap AND stopped working on the story itself to oversee the slip into the sewer. He isn't upset about the mess it became sos, as author and whatever title the studio gave him, he's complicit.

I'm waiting for the #metoo type accusations to eventually come out about what some of the female characters had to do to earn the part. No one writes that level of constant rape abuse and humiliation of women without having nothing but hate and disdain for them. Guy's a damn pig. I'd write a representation of him into one of my books, to kill him(like I did with a Christian Gray style character) but I'd gross myself out.

 

[FaeLissa]

erm - might has derailed Jason's point a tad. Guess I is not the only one what got mad at GRRM for being GRRM.

 

[lovecraft68]

erm - might has derailed Jason's point a tad. Guess I is not the only one what got mad at GRRM for being GRRM.

LOL. Yes, we'll let it go. I'll offer Jason my leg and make it all better.

But it proves GOT is a love or hate thing. Books were much better, until the show. Too bad he sold out whatever the original vision was.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I don't think of Tolkien as having refreshed a genre so much as having created one. I'm not aware of any epic fantasy fiction remotely like LOTR before it came out. Virtually everything in the fantasy genre since owes a big debt to his work.

In addition to the ones electricblue66 mentioned, I'd also note Dunsany, in particular The King of Elfland's Daughter. (Tolkien had already started his writing when that was published, but he hadn't yet released anything of note.)

Know what Tolkien did right? He finished his books

Only a few of them. He left a huge amount of incomplete work behind; after he died, his son Christopher spent the next ~ 40 years going over that material and getting what he could into publishable state. There's even a collection titled Unfinished Tales.

A lot of people feel HP Lovecraft redefined a genre by creating 'cosmic horror' but everyone has influences and in some of his works you can see Machen and Lord Dunsany.

Yep, and I'd add Robert Chambers and Algernon Blackwood to that list.

Still, I'd give HPL credit for "redefined" there. Not just for what he wrote himself, but for the extent of his collaborations with other writers; he became the nucleus for a shared universe that's still going today.

 

[lovecraft68]

In addition to the ones electricblue66 mentioned, I'd also note Dunsany, in particular The King of Elfland's Daughter. (Tolkien had already started his writing when that was published, but he hadn't yet released anything of note.)



Only a few of them. He left a huge amount of incomplete work behind; after he died, his son Christopher spent the next ~ 40 years going over that material and getting what he could into publishable state. There's even a collection titled Unfinished Tales.



Yep, and I'd add Robert Chambers and Algernon Blackwood to that list.

Still, I'd give HPL credit for "redefined" there. Not just for what he wrote himself, but for the extent of his collaborations with other writers; he became the nucleus for a shared universe that's still going today.

I was referring to the fact he finished The Trilogy and the prologue Hobbit. He didn't leave anyone hanging on his magnum opus.

I forgot about Blackwood. I have one of his anthologies. Like a lot of authors from that period, not easy to read, but damn good.

I agree about the collaborations. What I liked most about HPL was he wasn't selfish about his work. The guy openly encouraged people to borrow and add to what he'd created which is why even now his mythos continues to grow.

 

[SimonDoom]

Check out The Worm Ouroborus by Eric Rücker Eddison, first published in 1922. More chivalry and heroic quest, but makes Aragorn and Boromir look like a pair of try hards.

Mervyn Peake published his Gormenghast trilogy a decade before LOTR - a far superior fantasy world, IMHO, much grittier, fantastic in a different way. And sex, especially in the third volume.

David Lindsay published A Voyage to Arcturus in 1920, metaphysical writing, seriously strange, but quite extraordinary.

C.S.Lewis with his three sci-fi novels.

All, for me, more interesting than Tolkien. But yes, much fantasy since is derivative of Tolkien.

The best "new" fantasy thing in the last thirty years, I reckon, where the first two Thomas Covenant trilogies.

You live and learn. I do, anyway. I wasn't aware of some of these. Very interesting. I will have to check them out.

 

[FaeLissa]

Only a few of them. He left a huge amount of incomplete work behind; after he died, his son Christopher spent the next ~ 40 years going over that material and getting what he could into publishable state. There's even a collection titled Unfinished Tales.

I don't think "dying before he finished his stories" can be held against him. Is some stuff what is hard to resist, and death is one of them.

 

[SimonDoom]

The first couple of seasons were good. There was some heavy violence, rape gore, but it all seemed to fit then as always it became, people are into this let's overdo it.

.

I thought the middle seasons were the best. The politics of the show is, IMO, its most distinctively interesting feature, and the middle seasons focused a lot on the politics of the different rival kings and the intrigue in King's Landing. And they emphasized Tyrion and Tywin Lannister, the two best characters on the show, IMO.

You can tell with the last two seasons that the show outstripped the books, because the dialogue and character interactions aren't as interesting. It's mostly about the spectacle, and it almost gets away with it because the production values on the show are so good.

On your point about violence against women, there is a lot of that, but not so much the last two seasons. The women are in charge and are getting their revenge on everybody.

 

[lovecraft68]

I don't think "dying before he finished his stories" can be held against him. Is some stuff what is hard to resist, and death is one of them.

But in a way he'll live forever as here we are still talking about his writing. It hard for me to picture anything out now still being spoken of decades from now. That could be a thread topic in and of itself.

 

[FaeLissa]

But in a way he'll live forever as here we are still talking about his writing. It hard for me to picture anything out now still being spoken of decades from now. That could be a thread topic in and of itself.

I has been pronounced dead more than once - the first time before I was born. Today is the day for everythings cause tomorrow is just a hope.

 

[Bramblethorn]

(digressing, absolutely nothing to do with the original topic, feel free to skip as always)

But it proves GOT is a love or hate thing. Books were much better, until the show. Too bad he sold out whatever the original vision was.

Years back, before GoT got big, I read some of Martin's "Wild Cards" stuff (shared-universe superhero series) and I couldn't help but notice how many of the female supers seemed to have powers that required nudity. It's been a while and I may be misremembering details, but from what I recall...

- One female Ace who could walk through walls, but couldn't take her clothes with her
- Another who could turn invisible, but not her clothes
- Another who could turn into an elephant, shredding her clothes

Oh, and one female Joker with super-sensitive skin, who could barely be touched without excruciating pain. Naturally she got kidnapped and tortured :-/

So, maybe he did dial up the T&A and the sexual violence for HBO, but they've been present in his work for a long time. I don't know what that says about him as a person - I'd hate to be judged on some of the stuff I've written - but it left a bad taste in my mouth, and I've never felt an urge to read ASoIaF, for all that the plot sounds interesting.

It's funny - I don't mind naked women in erotica, or violent horror. Barker's Hellbound Heart is one of my all-time favourites. But I get twitchy when I feel like the author doesn't realise how much they're focussing on these elements.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

If you consider being filmed at gun point by mafia investors moving away from sleazy. But I get your point, it got X-rated material some popularity and paved the way for more movies like it and it kept going from there until the internet absolutely blew up the industry.

It's an interesting 'what if' speculation, isn't it? At the time, LL's claims had not been made - and wouldn't be for another five years, by which time a major cultural shift had occured. What would the impact have been, not only on that particular film (arguably the most profitable ever in terms of % return), but also on 'mainstream' erotica, had her claims been made when the film was first taking off?

Certainly, there were other films around and the floodgate may have opened anyway, but would it have played out the same way?

 

[Bramblethorn]

I don't think "dying before he finished his stories" can be held against him. Is some stuff what is hard to resist, and death is one of them.

I agree, but then I've heard people pre-emptively holding this against GRRM, under the assumption that he's not going to live to finish GoT. They may be right, but I can't imagine that telling an author "we think you're going to die soon so hurry up" is a great way to motivate him.

 

[lovecraft68]

(digressing, absolutely nothing to do with the original topic, feel free to skip as always)



Years back, before GoT got big, I read some of Martin's "Wild Cards" stuff (shared-universe superhero series) and I couldn't help but notice how many of the female supers seemed to have powers that required nudity. It's been a while and I may be misremembering details, but from what I recall...

- One female Ace who could walk through walls, but couldn't take her clothes with her
- Another who could turn invisible, but not her clothes
- Another who could turn into an elephant, shredding her clothes

Oh, and one female Joker with super-sensitive skin, who could barely be touched without excruciating pain. Naturally she got kidnapped and tortured :-/

So, maybe he did dial up the T&A and the sexual violence for HBO, but they've been present in his work for a long time. I don't know what that says about him as a person - I'd hate to be judged on some of the stuff I've written - but it left a bad taste in my mouth, and I've never felt an urge to read ASoIaF, for all that the plot sounds interesting.

It's funny - I don't mind naked women in erotica, or violent horror. Barker's Hellbound Heart is one of my all-time favourites. But I get twitchy when I feel like the author doesn't realise how much they're focussing on these elements.

Before I hit the main point-and I love when you digress because we seem to have similar interests-one thing Martin did that I didn't realize at the time was a short story called Night Flyers which was made into a very under rated sci fi/horror movie in the eighties I think.

There's a line between writing things you wouldn't want people to think are actually who/what you are or what you condone or enjoy. We all know how nuts I get with non con, but have I written a rape scene? Yes. But because it was an I spit on your grave revenge sort of premise. It needed to be there.

But its when you are constantly injecting something into your work that it becomes, okay at this degree and amount this is this person. Martin went beyond the T&A in that other series, and into a culture of pure abuse and hatred to women.

The excuse well it was like that back then? Okay, maybe it was(although this isn't back then its an alternate world sort of) but does it have to be shown constantly and beaten like a step child?

The scenes of that slimeball Geoffrey having Sansa beaten in court before the imp stops him and countless other scenes just leave me thinking this guy has deep seeded issues with women. Not saying he's violent with them in person or even abusive in any way, but goddamn when you abuse them in your work to that level? Its real

The infamous walk of shame? Could have been a powerful scene, but it was ruined by them having to show her naked for...forever.

I have a lot of experience with men who don't like woman, the real life LW style trolls because of somethings I'm involved in in real life. After awhile you get a sense of who is and isn't a persona and who is for real.

I have no issue branding Martin a woman hater and at the risk of sounding non PC(which I am) fact is he is obese and unattractive and many of that type tend to hate women like its their fault.

I set myself up for crap on that last remark, but sometimes the truth is an igly fact.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The excuse well it was like that back then? Okay, maybe it was(although this isn't back then its an alternate world sort of)

Yep. Readers who will happily accept dragons and magic swords suddenly insist that realism is everything when it comes to that one topic.

Seanan McGuire (modern fantasy/SF author) writes about an interaction where a reader asked her when some of her heroines were going to be raped, and told her off for being "unrealistic" when she said it wasn't going to happen. As she puts it - one of her characters is a hyper-evolved parasitic wasp pretending to be a human, but sure, the unrealistic bit is that she hasn't been raped.

Somehow we never hear these guys crying out for historically authentic coverage of topics like "medieval dental hygiene" and "how women managed their periods". Almost like it isn't actually about realism.

 

[NotWise]

I don't know what that says about him as a person - I'd hate to be judged on some of the stuff I've written - but it left a bad taste in my mouth, and I've never felt an urge to read ASoIaF, for all that the plot sounds interesting.

Martin lives near here. He owns an art cinema, is active in the community, philanthropic, and sympathetic toward other arts. He's pretty often on public discussion panels and involved in local social/political issues. He does have a face for radio, though.

If you do need to judge him then there's more to go on than his writing.

 

[FaeLissa]

and the "back then" trope - is not based on reality, either. Don't use it - it is not historical, it's just an excuse to make people of the feminine pursuasion into easy victims. There was never a time when that was okay - is why people like Shakespeare put their stories in nother lands - cause everybody knowed that crap wouldn't has gone far (it would has gone, just not that far) in the world they knew but in nother lands, well, ya knows how them foreigners is. They does stuff us honest <insert tribe> wouldn't never thinked of!

 

[lovecraft68]

Martin lives near here. He owns an art cinema, is active in the community, philanthropic, and sympathetic toward other arts. He's pretty often on public discussion panels and involved in local social/political issues. He does have a face for radio, though.

If you do need to judge him then there's more to go on than his writing.

All the above are great things, but every person has good/bad qualities. My point is that in his head? He hates women. My take and I'd put ,money on it. Even of he donates money to women's charities or speaks on behalf of them? I'd smell an act.

I'll be the first one to say I can be a dink. Here and in real life because I'm pretty much the same persona. I have unlikable qualities(although being blunt is my main issue and that is an unlikable quality these days) but I volunteer time at a woman's shelter teaching victims of abuse self defense. I give money to several causes, all women's rights related and of course animals who are so much better than people

Those are good qualities. But it doesn't make my bad ones any better. Everyone is one of those two faced coins from the Batman comics....wow, that's deep.

 

[FaeLissa]

I agree, but then I've heard people pre-emptively holding this against GRRM, under the assumption that he's not going to live to finish GoT. They may be right, but I can't imagine that telling an author "we think you're going to die soon so hurry up" is a great way to motivate him.

I missed this post but - I giggled lots when finded it

 

[lovecraft68]

I agree, but then I've heard people pre-emptively holding this against GRRM, under the assumption that he's not going to live to finish GoT. They may be right, but I can't imagine that telling an author "we think you're going to die soon so hurry up" is a great way to motivate him.

I think when they say that its based on the fact he's up there in years and ll joking aside he's heavy and a heart attack waiting to happen at his age. Also a very slow writer. This series started back in the 80's if I'm not mistaken. Granted the books are very lengthy, but its obvious he hasn't been focused on them since the show started.

HBO has to finish this because if they wait for him there would be too long of a period between seasons and people would lose interest. I doubt anyone has actually said directly to him, can you do this before you croak? But there are people who have voiced the concern, but more as a dig of how long he's taking.