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

[Jamie Lannister]

3 hours ago, Leap said:

Robin Hobb is a terrible idea. Have a heart!

 

There's been plenty of threads about this before and I have no wish to get involved in another argument on this topic, but with that shoved completely to one side I have to say: The Wheel of Time does not have particularly good female characters imo. Lord of the Rings is light on female characters, but those that appear are well realised. Eowyn and Galadriel are both pretty amazing heroines. I really have very few positive things to say about female WoT characters. Egwene has one strong arc imo, and that's about it.

I thought Moiraine and Siuan were pretty decent characters... at least until they got paired off with Thom and Gareth. Jordan's romance was poor in general, but it was to the detriment of both characters IMO. Siuan especially suffered from Jordan's insistence that every woman in love act like either a lovesick schoolgirl or a spiteful, braid-yanking goblin.

At least, Moiraine in books 1-5 was easily my favourite character in the series.

[HexMachina]

3 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

No. Kids must learn that life is terrible.

And that animals are better than people. 

[The Marquis de Leech]

Consider the My Little Pony fandom. Of adult fans, 80% are male (hence the "Brony" phenomenon). For a TV programme that has an overwhelmingly female-dominated setting (there are two significant male characters I can think of, but they are generally in a supporting role). By MM's reasoning, MLP needs to broaden its appeal to women... by doing something.

 

[The Marquis de Leech]

11 hours ago, MorgulisMaximus said:

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!"

FOTR: Lobelia, Rosie Cotton, Goldberry, Arwen, Galadriel

TTT: Eowyn, Shelob

ROTK: Eowyn, Ioreth, Arwen, Galadriel, Elanor

Sorry, your argument still doesn't fly. I am still waiting for some sort of response on the "Eowyn is a minor character" front.

[MorgulisMaximus]

32 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

FOTR: Lobelia, Rosie Cotton, Goldberry, Arwen, Galadriel

TTT: Eowyn, Shelob

ROTK: Eowyn, Ioreth, Arwen, Galadriel, Elanor

Sorry, your argument still doesn't fly. I am still waiting for some sort of response on the "Eowyn is a minor character" front.

Good list! I had to Kindle search my copy of LOTR to remember some of these obscure characters. Rosie Cotton is not showing up. Does she have a different name in some versions of the book?

No offense, but your list shows just how few female characters there are in a 1200 page story. Let me count the number of male characters and get back to you... it might take a while as I suspect there are a few hundred.

[Darth Richard II]

this is the greatest thread since the lies of locke lamora!

 

(sorry)

[The Marquis de Leech]

13 minutes ago, MorgulisMaximus said:

Good list! I had to Kindle search my copy of LOTR to remember some of these obscure characters. Rosie Cotton is not showing up. Does she have a different name in some versions of the book?

No offense, but your list shows just how few female characters there are in a 1200 page story. Let me count the number of male characters and get back to you... it might take a while as I suspect there are a few hundred.

The list is actually in error - Rosie Cotton turns up in ROTK, but not FOTR (damn you, Peter Jackson for tinkering with my memory of the book). You might find her under Rose instead.

As for your second point,I think you are confusing quantity with quality. Eowyn is not a minor character - she is the most important Rohirric character, and possibly the second most important human character (behind Aragorn himself). Galadriel is one of the most powerful non-divine beings in Middle-earth. Shelob is the master of her lair; Lobelia is a fun minor villain we can appreciate; Goldberry is an enigma; Ioreth's knowledge saves lives.

Tolkien does write strong and interesting female characters - the point is that what they lack in number, they tend to make up for in strength.

[Jo498]

7 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Consider the My Little Pony fandom. Of adult fans, 80% are male (hence the "Brony" phenomenon).

Why do you tell me stuff I had never heard of but that led me to googling pictures I cannot unsee now?

[The Marquis de Leech]

5 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

Why do you tell me stuff I had never heard of but that led me to googling pictures I cannot unsee now?

I flatted with a young couple in 2015-2016, and they had two young children, so I ended up watching My Little Pony (and Frozen) a fair bit. I don't consider myself a Brony, but I have developed a working knowledge of (and even a vague fondness) for the programme.

There are even multiple documentaries you can find on youtube about Bronies. It's a fascinating phenomenon.

[MorgulisMaximus]

15 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

The list is actually in error - Rosie Cotton turns up in ROTK, but not FOTR (damn you, Peter Jackson for tinkering with my memory of the book). You might find her under Rose instead.

As for your second point,I think you are confusing quantity with quality. Eowyn is not a minor character - she is the most important Rohirric character, and possibly the second most important human character (behind Aragorn himself). Galadriel is one of the most powerful non-divine beings in Middle-earth. Shelob is the master of her lair; Lobelia is a fun minor villain we can appreciate; Goldberry is an enigma; Ioreth's knowledge saves lives.

Tolkien does write strong and interesting female characters - the point is that what they lack in number, they tend to make up for in strength.

Okay, I agree with you on Eowyn. 

Here is a quote from the LOTR project website: 

http://lotrproject.com/statistics/

Only 18 % of the characters Tolkien described in his works are female. This does not mean that his world lacks women but rather that most of his stories are not centered around their point of view. 

 

 

[unJon]

This thread was worth it for the Brony. 

[baxus]

On 2/10/2017 at 8:34 PM, MorgulisMaximus said:

I'm no child psychologist... but here's a simple test. Give your daughter the choice between a Luke Skywalker action figure and a Rey action figure. Give it a try!

And how exactly does this response relate to my statement that girls don't get bent out of shape over gender inequalities?

If my hypothetical daughter would go for Rey action figure, that would prove what?

On 2/10/2017 at 9:07 PM, MorgulisMaximus said:

Remember Glorfindel??? In the film, Arwen steals his role. Many other examples, I'm pretty sure Walsh and Boyens (the scriptwriters) go over this in detail in the Appendices of the Extended Bluray Edition.

Arwen taking out a katana, and going all "come at me, bro" on all 9 Nazgul is most definitely not a good example of strong female character you are so determined to prove Tolkien's work lacks.

[Lord Varys]

I'd not give my daughters fantasy novels to read that reinforce the overall significance of women the way Tolkien does (because he does not). I'm not a woman but as boy I'd have never read a book like 'The Hobbit' had it been a book where girls/women were only mentioned at one point. Just as a boy I never read books specifically written for girls - girls stuff is for girls only whereas everything else if for boys/men. We are the norm, women are a minority. The idea that (young) women should actually like to read books like 'The Hobbit' works only if you use male as the norm and expect of half the population to identify with your gender.

What can a story where only male characters feature tell a young girl about her place in the world? Nothing, actually. I'd like my children to read literature that actually has been written for them. LotR isn't much better in that regard, possibly even worse. Women exist but are side characters, and especially Arwen is a joke.

What makes gender roles so interesting in fantasy literature is that the author is completely free in inventing the societal rules of the world he invents - and that, in turn, underlines whatever conscious and unconscious biases he has even more than when, say, an author writes a historical novel of some kind where the real world sets real limits to what you can and cannot do.

For instance, George really has strong female characters in his stories but his women still suffer from the rules of the crappy fake-medieval world he invented in the first place. One can read ASoIaF as series showing the fucked up societies of feudalism and medieval patriarchy, but you don't have to read it that way. And quite honestly, there is actually no need for that kind of literature. We all knew how fucked up that kind of society was. Westeros could have been a much more gender-equal society without being any less interesting.

That said, 'The Wheel of Time' is actually even worse than Tolkien with its stupid gender essentialism and childish (female) characters behaving like caricatures. I have to admit, I did not get far into this series - mostly because the plot slows to a crawl long before even its fans say it does - but if there is an author who did not know how to write women then it was Robert Jordan.

[baxus]

Have you considered that "The Hobbit" is not meant to tell anyone their place in the world?

It's basically a bedtime story Tolkien told his kids, not some manifesto to base one's life on.

[matt b]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

That said, 'The Wheel of Time' is actually even worse than Tolkien with its stupid gender essentialism and childish (female) characters behaving like caricatures. I have to admit, I did not get far into this series - mostly because the plot slows to a crawl long before even its fans say it does - but if there is an author who did not know how to write women then it was Robert Jordan.

1000 times this.

[Jo498]

In which way are the hobbits and dwarves in "The hobbit" fulfilling traditional male roles or behaving "manly" or "teach women their proper place (in the kitchen? where the bachelor Bilbo is baking a cake for tea?)? They are basically genderless in all but the names.

People do not grow up in a vacuum and I prefer that children are exposed to all kinds of stuff that would be considered problematic, reinforcing, triggering etc. by current puritanism (like traditional fairy tales) than grow up ignorant of 3000 years of sedimented human cultural history. Of course one should use discretion and consider the age of the children (and many standard versions of fairy tales etc. have been bowdlerized compared to the older ones circulating orally). It would be as bizarre if a girl would be taught about "her place in the world" by Pippi Longstocking as by "Snow White" or "50 shades of grey"...

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, baxus said:

Have you considered that "The Hobbit" is not meant to tell anyone their place in the world?

It's basically a bedtime story Tolkien told his kids, not some manifesto to base one's life on.

Sure, and it works that way. But my point was that I don't think it is a story that has anything to tell to young girls in our time. I daresay even Priscilla Tolkien could profited somewhat from a bedtime story in which her gender had shown up not only once in conversation.

19 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

In which way are the hobbits and dwarves in "The hobbit" fulfilling traditional male roles or behaving "manly" or "teach women their proper place (in the kitchen? where the bachelor Bilbo is baking a cake for tea?)? They are basically genderless in all but the names.

That isn't the point. If there had been 'genderless' men and women in the book you would have had a point (but there are none). Then girls could also feel as if the story were addressed to them, and that it was okay to be a girl. But if you give books to young a girl where her gender doesn't even show or plays at best a subservient role then she is not going to feel well entertained (not to mention that she might get the impression that she is a second class human being).

One can make a point that Tolkien doesn't reinforce an especially machismo manly men culture with the Hobbits in LotR and 'The Hobbit' but his female characters are pretty much all very conservative and irrelevant. There basically two types (women who learn their place - like Aredhel, Éowyn, and the rebellious version of Galadriel) and women who basically are stand-ins for the Virgin Mary (the LotR Galadriel, Varda, Melian, possibly even Lúthien - although she also reflects Tolkien's own love for his wife, Edith). Women at best help the hero, give birth to his children, or a prices to be won (or bought) from another man (Lúthien, Idril, and Arwen).

And as I've argued in the Tolkien thread a while back the dynamic in the relationship of even the powerful women has the man always in charge. Galadriel and Melian and Lúthien might be more powerful than Celeborn, Thingol, and Beren, but the men rule kingdoms and make decision, their women at best advise them. Men make the calls.

[David Selig]

I really doubt modern girls will be negatively affected in any way from reading the Hobbit and won't be able to enjoy it. Yeah, there are no female characters. So what? It's a short book about a small cast who aren't even humans. And it's not like there aren't numerous children and YA adult books aimed at girls mostly, they currently dominate the market.

I am a guy and I never had a problem with reading books with mostly or exclusively female characters or relating to such characters.

[Jo498]

54 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

That isn't the point. If there had been 'genderless' men and women in the book you would have had a point (but there

No, that was exactly the point. The hobbit is a fairy tale not about princes saving a damsel and distress or anything else where gender roles could even be meaningfully applied. It is a story where gender hardly matters at all because it is simply irrelevant for the story.

I also call out "negatively affected" as an instance of "positive sexist" discrimination. Girls/women aren't weak or stupid and do not have to be protected from or advised against books who "teach them their place". Even less against those books who do no such thing but simply lack (or have very few) female characters. Does "Nothing New on the Western Front" teach women their places because only men are rotting in the trenches?

[Darktastes]

George RR Martin is not only influenced by Robert Jordan. George RR Martin is influenced by many writers during his years. Martin is mostly  influenced by Frank Herbert's Dune. Dune is a epic sci fi series. It has scheming manipulating houses,and telepathic powers. Song of ice and fire borrow's heavily from Dune. Dune explores themes like religion and politics.