Was GRRM influenced by Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series?

[MorgulisMaximus]

3 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

[citation needed]

BINGO! I found your data:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/21/movies/film-are-women-just-bored-of-the-rings.html

Those most likely to have read the books were ''older'' (in Hollywood-speak, over 25); 51 percent of them were older men, while only 33 percent were older women.

 

That means only 16% were younger males + younger females. Hence the younger female audience would likely be less than 8% and possibly much less. 

[The Marquis de Leech]

Seeing as fanfiction is overwhelmingly written by women, and that Tolkien fanfiction is just as common as ever, who on earth is writing all the Legolas fic and Fingon-Maedhros slash (hint - it is not men)?

[Darth Richard II]

*grabs popcorn*

[MorgulisMaximus]

59 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

So because someone on Reddit said so. Okay then, well I'm convinced!

Here's more data:

 http://samsherwoodunit1.blogspot.com/

Gender

The Harry Potter films are not marketed solely to one gender, and therefore statistics on the ratio of men and women who watch the Harry Potter films were hard to find, however for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (Final film), I was able to locate the ratio of social media posts between men and women. Below shows that 57% of the social media posts regarding Harry Potter were female, with 43% being male. This could be a slight indicator of the gender demographic of the Harry Potter films, showing that women have slight majority over men, however this cannot be confirmed as this is simply based on social media posts.

 

And even more data:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-07-18/entertainment/bs-ae-potter-succcess-20110713_1_deathly-hallows-harry-potter-steve-kloves

For 10 years, the "Potter" films have pulled boys and girls, jocks and geeks and gleeks, tweens and college kids and parents into their big tent. The audience numbers from this weekend's opening reflected that wide appeal: 54 percent were female and 46 percent were male.

 

Here are some more interesting facts:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/17/harry-potters-female-readers-now-driving-the-boom-in-grip-lit

The women switched on to books by Harry Potter are shaping the literary world, according to new research ...

[Rippounet]

On 07/02/2017 at 7:26 PM, MorgulisMaximus said:

I was tired of waiting and waiting for GRRM to finish The Winds of Winter so I picked up Eye of the World the first book to Robert Jordan's enormously long Wheel of Time series (15 books. 10,000+ pages).  Little over a month later, I've been gotten through half of the series. I was extremely impressed with the first few books. The writing style of Robert Jordan is superb, probably on par with GRRM (in some ways). By book seven the series grinds to a crawl much like GRRM's A Feast for Crows.

Much of the WoT was published before AOIAF. I have noticed more than a few similar plot lines in both series. It would have been chronologically impossible for Robert Jordan to have been influenced by George R. R. Martin. But I think there is a real chance that parts of ASOIF were influenced by Robert Jordan.

I had the same experience and the same questions, but it's more likely that Martin and Jordan had similar readings in the first place. As others pointed out, many elements are rather common in fantasy. You'll find similarities in many series (I'm looking at you Robin Hobb).

Still, it's troubling to see how many similarities there are (for yes, there are many, as google will tell you). It made me realize that what makes ASOAIF great is not the plot or the themes, but the specific way the characters are developed. Martin's POV structure is far more elaborate than Jordan's imho.
 

[MorgulisMaximus]

7 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

It made me realize that what makes ASOAIF great is not the plot or the themes, but the specific way the characters are developed. Martin's POV structure is far more elaborate than Jordan's imho.
 

I think Martin is the best at realistic shock-and-awe. The shock-and-awe is not gratuitous but rather follows logically and organically from the progression of the story. Yet the reader rarely see it coming because they failed to see the forest for the trees.

Jordan probably puts too much foreshadowing. His plots are often hard to predict but you always get a sense that something is going to happen even if you don't know what. Martin totally blindsides you, unless you read very very carefully. Every single word Martin puts down is excruciatingly well thought out. That's why it takes him soooo long to write a single book.

[baxus]

16 hours ago, Gronzag said:

How old were you when you started reading it? I really feel that Wheel of Time was written for much younger audience than ASOIAF and Second Apocalypse.

I was in my early twenties.

12 hours ago, MorgulisMaximus said:

A high percentage of Harry Potter readers are young women and they are now having children. Guess what books they are going to read to their children. Bingo! Another 450 million Harry Potter books will be sold over the next 20 years.

Now what are the demographics for LOTR readers... many old men and very very few young women. LOTR has no significant female characters. Eowyn is only a minor character and definitely not enough to motivate young women to read LOTR to their children!

Potter wins, LOTR sails off to edge of the world... and drops into the abyss. 

First of all, you assume that LotR was not picked up by a whole new generation ever since it came out. I'm in my early thirties and A LOT of my generation has read it, as have generations before us and let's not even get into the whole crowd that got into it after movies came out.

Second, you assume that men don't read bedtime stories which has no basis in reality.

Third, even if LotR demographics was as you picture it, that would make for a lot of older men with a rather cool story to tell their grandchildren.

Fourth, the fact that some, as the article you linked calls them, "militant feminists" have such a thorough dislike for LotR it doesn't mean that women in general share the sentiment.

[The Marquis de Leech]

6 hours ago, MorgulisMaximus said:

Every single word Martin puts down is excruciatingly well thought out.

"Her cunt became the world".

Excruciating, yes, but not well thought-out. 

[Jo498]

The current statistics for some fan-base wrt gender/age/income are mostly moot for predictions for several decades. Just look up bestsellers of 1880, 1920, probably even 1960 and wonder why the teenagers of 1960 didn't make their offspring born in the 1970s all fans of certain books. Who can predict what the "Harry Potter" phenomenon of 2040 might be that will put the actual HP in the shade, no matter how many grannies insist how excited they were in the early 2000s waiting for each new book?

[The Marquis de Leech]

11 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

The current statistics for some fan-base wrt gender/age/income are mostly moot for predictions for several decades. Just look up bestsellers of 1880, 1920, probably even 1960 and wonder why the teenagers of 1960 didn't make their offspring born in the 1970s all fans of certain books. Who can predict what the "Harry Potter" phenomenon of 2040 might be that will put the actual HP in the shade, no matter how many grannies insist how excited they were in the early 2000s waiting for each new book?

Agreed.

How many people today bother with Abraham Merritt? A century ago, he was probably the best-selling fantasy author in the world. 

The flip side is H.P. Lovecraft, who died practically unknown.

[Jo498]

And if anything, I'd say predictions get even harder in a society where new media can dominate books to some extent.

Of course there is a lot of crappy stuff that seems incredibly stable: Aren't Enid Blyton's books still selling well? They were trite and old-fashioned even when I read them in the early 1980s (to some extent I realized this after a while, if not with 8, then with 10 but I kept reading them anyway).

[Werthead]

Quote

Fourth, the fact that some, as the article you linked calls them, "militant feminists" have such a thorough dislike for LotR it doesn't mean that women in general share the sentiment.

Looking at TORN, LotRO and other forums and wide-audience games and fanfic, yes, Tolkien has an absolutely enormous number of female readers and fans (so does Martin), just as Harry Potter has quite a few male fans.

Germaine Greer hates Tolkien, yes, but she hates Pratchett as well, which renders her critical faculties suspect overall. Besides the fact she is pretty much ignored by modern-day feminists (many of them Tolkien fans) who consider her only vaguely useful contributions to the movement were from 40 years ago.

[MorgulisMaximus]

4 hours ago, Jo498 said:

And if anything, I'd say predictions get even harder in a society where new media can dominate books to some extent.

Of course there is a lot of crappy stuff that seems incredibly stable: Aren't Enid Blyton's books still selling well? They were trite and old-fashioned even when I read them in the early 1980s (to some extent I realized this after a while, if not with 8, then with 10 but I kept reading them anyway).

Agreed but the statistics above show that even during the media peak for LOTR when the movies came out, the audience was mostly older. Potter had older readers also, but its demographics were heavily skewed to the younger.

[MorgulisMaximus]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Looking at TORN, LotRO and other forums and wide-audience games and fanfic, yes, Tolkien has an absolutely enormous number of female readers and fans (so does Martin), just as Harry Potter has quite a few male fans.

Germaine Greer hates Tolkien, yes, but she hates Pratchett as well, which renders her critical faculties suspect overall. Besides the fact she is pretty much ignored by modern-day feminists (many of them Tolkien fans) who consider her only vaguely useful contributions to the movement were from 40 years ago.

ASOIAF definitely has a huge female fan base. Why? Martin is good at writing powerful female characters and many of them. Tolkien's only had Galadriel (barely mentioned) and Eowyn (minor role). LOTR is beyond doubt a story of men, whether they be human, hobbit, elf or dwarf. Similar to the old eastern war novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms which barely ever mentions any women.

[The Marquis de Leech]

10 minutes ago, MorgulisMaximus said:

ASOIAF definitely has a huge female fan base. Why? Martin is good at writing powerful female characters and many of them. Tolkien's only had Galadriel (barely mentioned) and Eowyn (minor role). LOTR is beyond doubt a story of men, whether they be human, hobbit, elf or dwarf. Similar to the old eastern war novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms which barely ever mentions any women.

Yeah right.

https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2017/02/10/tolkien-and-female-characters-part-i/

[Jo498]

I think it is often overlooked that Frodo and also Bilbo in the hobbit are not at all prototypical male heroes. I remember that several years ago I talked to a young teacher who argued that while reading The Hobbit in class (I think these were difficult/special needs pupils) she realized that Bilbo had cliché female characteristics, especially in the beginning: He is a homemaker and a good cook. He is somewhat whiny (although the dwarves are hardly better) when faced with minor hardships like bad weather, he is hardly ever using violence but cunning etc. Of course, these are also some of the characteristics of a picaresque hero, a "master burglar", so this girl might have read too much feminist theory. But I could not completely deny her point. And LotR is mainly a story about duty, pity, friendship and sacrifice, all of which are gender-neutral virtues, not about He-Men (or He-dwarves) doing Manly Things.

Anyway, I think it is naive (and a gross underestimation of both boys and girls) to assume that they will always prefer books with heros of their own gender. I can hardly have been the only boy who liked Pippi Longstocking and Ronya as well as Atreju or Tom Sawyer. Finally, HP is also clearly male-dominated although not to the extent some other books are.

[MorgulisMaximus]

6 hours ago, baxus said:

 

Second, you assume that men don't read bedtime stories which has no basis in reality.

Third, even if LotR demographics was as you picture it, that would make for a lot of older men with a rather cool story to tell their grandchildren.

Fourth, the fact that some, as the article you linked calls them, "militant feminists" have such a thorough dislike for LotR it doesn't mean that women in general share the sentiment.

 

Grandaughter: "Grandpa, why are there no girls in your story?"

Grandpa: "Patience, child... In the next book, there is a girl. But you have to pay close attention because she is dressed like a boy."

Grandaughter angrily tugs her hair braid: "Hmph! Men! Grandpa, I hate your story!"

[MorgulisMaximus]

1 hour ago, Jo498 said:

Anyway, I think it is naive (and a gross underestimation of both boys and girls) to assume that they will always prefer books with heros of their own gender. I can hardly have been the only boy who liked Pippi Longstocking and Ronya as well as Atreju or Tom Sawyer. Finally, HP is also clearly male-dominated although not to the extent some other books are.

Good arguments, but there is no assumption here. The hard analytical data is presented above as requested. Harry Potter is clearly gender-neutral with approx. 50/50 boy-to-girls readership. LOTR is closer to 65/35 male/female readership.

[polishgenius]

2 hours ago, MorgulisMaximus said:

Agreed but the statistics above show that even during the media peak for LOTR when the movies came out, the audience was mostly older. Potter had older readers also, but its demographics were heavily skewed to the younger.

 

 

I have to say, I appreciate that you actually went on a mission to find some data.

But I think you're misusing it here: there aren't too many other stats for demographic breakdown available, for either books or films, but that data, presented (without deception, to be fair) in an article clearly already biased towards making the point you're making, comes from before the movies came out and doesn't take into account readers who would have been drawn to it by the films.


It's also not really a shock that a kid's book series skews younger than a not-kid's-book series. That doesn't mean readership of LotR is all going to die off and no-one will ever read it again, as you seem to be implying.

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, MorgulisMaximus said:

Agreed but the statistics above show that even during the media peak for LOTR when the movies came out, the audience was mostly older. Potter had older readers also, but its demographics were heavily skewed to the younger.

Sales of LOTR are still going strong 60 years after it was published, so I doubt if its readership is dying off.  And, plenty of women greatly enjoy the book.

Since it would appeal to a somewhat older age group than Harry Potter, it's not surprising that its readership is older on average than Harry Potter's.