Depends on how grounded in a dirty reality you want your fantasy writing too really. Tolkien’s writing a pretty clean fantasy world whereas GRRM writes a pretty dirty reality of mud blood and filth. What are the orcs doing to women in villages they capture in Tolkien’s world? What are human soldiers doing on a war march for months on end? Probably not abstaining from the local brothels but they also don’t exist in Tolkien’s world when they obviously would. Tolkien was never writing for that kind of grounded realism because it would’ve limited the audience of his books. He probably could write that though.
GRRM’s world is more medieval and human. Tolkien’s world is more fantasy than medieval. Just different styles really, almost different genres. Black Sails is similar in the sense that it is grounded and human whereas Pirates of the Caribbean is fantasy. GRRM’s work belongs alongside Black Sails more than the fantasy.
Depends on how grounded in a dirty reality you want your fantasy writing too really. Tolkien’s writing a pretty clean fantasy world whereas GRRM writes a pretty dirty reality of mud blood and filth. What are the orcs doing to women in villages they capture in Tolkien’s world? What are human soldiers doing on a war march for months on end? Probably not abstaining from the local brothels but they also don’t exist in Tolkien’s world when they obviously would. Tolkien was never writing for that kind of grounded realism because it would’ve limited the audience of his books. He probably could write that though.
GRRM’s world is more medieval and human. Tolkien’s world is more fantasy than medieval. Just different styles really, almost different genres. Black Sails is similar in the sense that it is grounded and human whereas Pirates of the Caribbean is fantasy. GRRM’s work belongs alongside Black Sails more than the fantasy.
That makes a lot of sense.