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

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, Jo498 said:

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.

Still, it has nothing to tell to girls/women aside from the fact that they do not matter. All I was saying is that 'The Hobbit' is not my first thought when I think about a birthday present for a young girl.

5 hours ago, Jo498 said:

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?

I already addressed that, actually. If you write about historical or contemporary matters you have to stick to the facts. But I think you, too, would agree that 'Im Westen nichts Neues' is not exactly a book for a (young) child of any gender.

I was not suggesting censure, I was talking about what I would do if I had a daughter. I could not give her all the books of the world (nor could she read them) so I'd choose those who I think she could profit from. And 'The Hobbit' isn't exactly at the top of that list.

6 hours ago, David Selig said:

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.

They won't be negatively affected by it all that much but I assume they would not have all that much fun with it. And part of that certainly would be the fact that there are no characters in there they could identify with in the same sense as they could if Bilbo was actually female.

6 hours ago, David Selig said:

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

When I was a boy I was not encouraged to read books who were written for women/girls. Were you? I read the stuff that was written for men (i.e. everything that was not explicitly written for girls/women).

[Darth Richard II]

Maybe you guys should start a seperate Tolkien and Women thread or something?

[Lord Varys]

We could. But this thread is no longer about Robert Jordan and George, either, or is it? George wasn't influenced by Jordan in any important way.

[polishgenius]

39 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

 I read the stuff that was written for men (i.e. everything that was not explicitly written for girls/women).

I won't argue that there isn't an imbalance, especially in some areas and genres (non-urban fantasy being one of them) in terms of both authors being published and women being represented in the books, I think this idea is a real stretch. Most books aren't written with any audience in mind specifically, and in any case the argument that it's good if girls and women have more stuff representative of them, the idea that they can't or shouldn't connect with stuff that isn't, which appears to be the conclusion of the argument you're making, is absurd.


Anyway, I was encouraged to, and did, read everything that I could get my hands on. Doubt I was the only one.

[HexMachina]

35 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Still, it has nothing to tell to girls/women aside from the fact that they do not matter. All I was saying is that 'The Hobbit' is not my first thought when I think about a birthday present for a young girl.

I already addressed that, actually. If you write about historical or contemporary matters you have to stick to the facts. But I think you, too, would agree that 'Im Westen nichts Neues' is not exactly a book for a (young) child of any gender.

I was not suggesting censure, I was talking about what I would do if I had a daughter. I could not give her all the books of the world (nor could she read them) so I'd choose those who I think she could profit from. And 'The Hobbit' isn't exactly at the top of that list.

They won't be negatively affected by it all that much but I assume they would not have all that much fun with it. And part of that certainly would be the fact that there are no characters in there they could identify with in the same sense as they could if Bilbo was actually female.

When I was a boy I was not encouraged to read books who were written for women/girls. Were you? I read the stuff that was written for men (i.e. everything that was not explicitly written for girls/women).

Personally I don't think a character needs to share the reader's sex for the reader to identify with them. Character traits and personality are far more important for identifying with a character. I can relate to/identify with Fitz in the RotE series very much despite his being a man. I see parts of myself in Bilbo and sam in LotR/the Hobbit, despite them being men, and not even human. For me it's more about seeing traits in a character that you recognise in yourself. And also seeing things that one finds admirable/desirable too, and thinking - could that be me? Nothing in the Hobbit suggests to the female reader that she can't go out and adventure because she is female.

And as a child I read everything I could. Books are rarely marketed explicitly for only one sex, with maybe a few exceptions (though even here, it's not like, especially in the present day, anyone would bat an eyelash at you reading a female-oriented erotica as a man). And if you choose not to read books you perceive as being targeted at the opposite sex, it's only yourself that is missing out. Also not sure I see that The hobbit was explicitly not written for girls/women. 

[Darth Richard II]

13 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

We could. But this thread is no longer about Robert Jordan and George, either, or is it? George wasn't influenced by Jordan in any important way.

Well yes, that's my point. Let the stupid thread  die.

[unJon]

Holy thread drift, Batman!

[The Marquis de Leech]

3 hours ago, unJon said:

Holy thread drift, Batman!

We've gone from Martin and Jordan, to a sprinkling of other influences, to the demographics of Tolkien and Harry Potter fandoms, to Bronies, to the portrayal of women in Tolkien. This thread hasn't so much drifted, it's fallen through at least three different rabbit holes in a mere eight pages.

[The Marquis de Leech]

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

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).

OK, excluding the monsters, where do the following fit:

• Lobelia Sackville-Baggins
• Ioreth
• Haleth
• Andreth
• Morwen
• Nienor
• Yavanna (I'd accept Varda as a Mary figure, but good luck shoe-horning Yavanna)
• Erendis

Idril, incidentally, is the only female character other than Éowyn to have worn armour in a battle situation 

[baxus]

18 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

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.

It is a story that has as much to say to young girls of our time as it has to say to young boys of our time. It is a tale of adventure and magic.

Come to think of it, your statement that such books are not for girls is more discriminatory than anything Tolkien may or may not have written, regarding women' position in societies he made up.

18 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

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.

You are once again skipping over the fact that Galadriel has the Ring of Power, not Celeborn. She is also a member of the White Council, which is a group of wisest and most powerful people in Middle Earth Steward of Gondor wasn't deemed fit to join. She is the one who gives council to the Fellowship. She is in no way described or treated as an inferior to her husband.

[Gorn]

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I was not suggesting censure, I was talking about what I would do if I had a daughter. I could not give her all the books of the world (nor could she read them) so I'd choose those who I think she could profit from. And 'The Hobbit' isn't exactly at the top of that list.

Actually, as a father of a one-year old girl, "The Hobbit" is definitely near the top of my list of books which I plan to read to hear when she is a little older.

[Jo498]

I do not deny that there are children/YA books more clearly targetted at one gender and others that aren't. All three categories can contain/imply/defend traditional gender roles or not.

E.g. Pippi Longstocking is good for boys and girls and to some extent subverts traditional roles (interestingly, quite a few of Lindgren's other books are far more traditional). The Famous Five (and most other Blyton "child detectives") has both boys and girls in it but despite the tomboy Georgina it often enforces traditional roles, other Blyton like Mallory towers? or other Girls Boarding school stuff is clearly "girl's literature" and at least from our perspective tends to enforce trad roles although one has to keep in mind that the headstrong girls and tomboys in such series might have been slightly more subversive in 1950 than in 2017. I cannot think of an internationally well known "boy's series" right now, maybe "Three investigators" with almost no girls (but an aunt of almost Wodehousian character strength, IIRC) and the implication that the detecting stuff is for boys only/mainly.

My point was that "The Hobbit" is rather different from such cases. There are almost no female characters but as most of the cast are not even human there is not such a clear identification figure for the reader and except for two supporting figures (Beorn and Bard) they are not traditionally manly. (But maybe my perspective is different because I read the Hobbit fairly late, around 15 when I would not easily identify with such fairy tale characters anyway.)

The only point where I see an indirect reinforcement of traditional gender roles (or maybe simple historical truth) in the Hobbit is that treasure hunting expeditions and wars are usually male-dominated enterprises. Which is not wrong, even today, for all kinds of reasons. To see the lack of female characters as a fault of a story like "The Hobbit" seems to me as misguided as to demand "minority" characters (although the dwarves might count as minorities in the setting as they are basically exiles). Good criticism (and here RBPL's series is superior to the text he reacted to, he is also simply better at close and contextual reading) does not start with external demands but looks at the internal demands, "logic" and consistency of the narrative.

Of course I do not know this, but I never had the impression that "The Hobbit" was considered a "boy's book" the way "Tom Sawyer" or "Treasure Island" might be.

[Lord Varys]

11 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I won't argue that there isn't an imbalance, especially in some areas and genres (non-urban fantasy being one of them) in terms of both authors being published and women being represented in the books, I think this idea is a real stretch. Most books aren't written with any audience in mind specifically, and in any case the argument that it's good if girls and women have more stuff representative of them, the idea that they can't or shouldn't connect with stuff that isn't, which appears to be the conclusion of the argument you're making, is absurd.

Anyway, I was encouraged to, and did, read everything that I could get my hands on. Doubt I was the only one.

Again, that isn't the point. Anybody can read 'The Hobbit' if she or he likes to. And if we are talking about a bookworm child interested in fantasy stuff I would, of course, encourage such a child to read Tolkien eventually. But it would still not be my first choice, especially not at an early age.

11 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Personally I don't think a character needs to share the reader's sex for the reader to identify with them. Character traits and personality are far more important for identifying with a character. I can relate to/identify with Fitz in the RotE series very much despite his being a man. I see parts of myself in Bilbo and sam in LotR/the Hobbit, despite them being men, and not even human. For me it's more about seeing traits in a character that you recognise in yourself. And also seeing things that one finds admirable/desirable too, and thinking - could that be me? Nothing in the Hobbit suggests to the female reader that she can't go out and adventure because she is female.

You really think that a novel where only male characters show up makes no differences between the genders in relation to what it sells to the people reading it? Now, I admit that 'The Hobbit' isn't describing any events a child could hope to emulate, but in general sense it is about adventure, and on that level it sells the idea that girls not only don't do this kind of stuff, but they don't even exist in that sphere.

Irregardless of innate tendencies or not, I see no reason why literature should necessarily transport or reinforce gender stereotypes. And Tolkien does that through the whole story. Éowyn does it perfectly. The only time a woman can dare to play a man's role is in the face of certain doom, and even then this is clearly wrong. She learns her lesson and becomes a good housewife and mother. One could argue that it might have been better if Tolkien had cut Éowyn completely, or had at least granted her a heroic death on the battlefield. A happy ending for Éowyn in Tolkien's mind is not that she has successful proven that she is worthy enough to fight at the side of her male peers, but that she buries that mad dream/is healed from this sickness. And that's not exactly the kind of lesson you would want to teach any woman today. Because if you translate it into a context that matters for us, the readers, in reality, it means submission to male authority is a good thing for a woman. Éowyn is a woman who gives up her job to please her husband. Or rather a woman who gives up the idea that she should have a job, too.

But you certainly have a point that we can identify with various aspects of characters depending how much of ourself we see in them. And if we are reading good literature then we get immersed in the character and the world, and really feel a connection. However, I'd think that whenever gender roles and other aspects your are more or less familiar with (age, the effects illness, obesity, etc.) come up explicitly it should be more easy to identify with things you actually know. For instance, it is (most likely) more difficult for me to relate as much to a female character who lives through a very well written orgasm. Vice versa, I can much better relate to boys/men being shamed the way they usually are than to the way girls/women usually humiliate their peers. Empathy works best if it really gets to the core of the matter. At least in my experience.

Quote

And as a child I read everything I could. Books are rarely marketed explicitly for only one sex, with maybe a few exceptions (though even here, it's not like, especially in the present day, anyone would bat an eyelash at you reading a female-oriented erotica as a man). And if you choose not to read books you perceive as being targeted at the opposite sex, it's only yourself that is missing out. Also not sure I see that The hobbit was explicitly not written for girls/women. 

As an adult you can read whatever the hell you want. But back when I was a child it was frowned at by adults and other children alike if girls wanted to do boy things and vice versa. Not just on the playground and in kindergarten but also in relation to books. I remember quite vividly having borrowed a lot of books from my much older female cousin, only picking those who were not explicitly for girls. When I later actually rode one such I actually found them pretty interesting.

7 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

OK, excluding the monsters, where do the following fit:

• Lobelia Sackville-Baggins
• Ioreth
• Haleth
• Andreth
• Morwen
• Nienor
• Yavanna (I'd accept Varda as a Mary figure, but good luck shoe-horning Yavanna)
• Erendis

Idril, incidentally, is the only female character other than Éowyn to have worn armour in a battle situation 

A lot of those are only known by the Tolkien nerds. Erendis and Andreth are especially obscure characters. Haleth could have been great if Tolkien had written a piece as large as the Narn about her, not that issue-ridden Túrin chap.

But those characters are all basically side characters or extras. Nienor is mainly just a plot device so that Túrin can kill himself.

54 minutes ago, Gorn said:

Actually, as a father of a one-year old girl, "The Hobbit" is definitely near the top of my list of books which I plan to read to hear when she is a little older.

I hope she enjoys it.

48 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

I do not deny that there are children/YA books more clearly targetted at one gender and others that aren't. All three categories can contain/imply/defend traditional gender roles or not.

E.g. Pippi Longstocking is good for boys and girls and to some extent subverts traditional roles (interestingly, quite a few of Lindgren's other books are far more traditional). The Famous Five (and most other Blyton "child detectives") has both boys and girls in it but despite the tomboy Georgina it often enforces traditional roles, other Blyton like Mallory towers? or other Girls Boarding school stuff is clearly "girl's literature" and at least from our perspective tends to enforce trad roles although one has to keep in mind that the headstrong girls and tomboys in such series might have been slightly more subversive in 1950 than in 2017. I cannot think of an internationally well known "boy's series" right now, maybe "Three investigators" with almost no girls (but an aunt of almost Wodehousian character strength, IIRC) and the implication that the detecting stuff is for boys only/mainly.

That is basically part of the problem. A lot of children/adolescent books that read and read again are classics, containing role models that have become hopelessly outdated. As a fellow German (at least that's what I deduce from your location) you might also be familiar with the all-time youth detective favorites in Germany, TKKG. The kind of morale and role models transported in those stories is utterly ridiculous, and I actually remember being quite wary of punks and homeless people at the age of 8-10 mostly because of reading stuff like that.

Never read much about Blyton but as a boy you usually don't realize all that much how sexist the attitudes towards girls when you are a child (I don't know how aware girls are of this, but I'm pretty sure they are aware of the fact that boys exclude them from their adventure games and the likes on the playground).

48 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

My point was that "The Hobbit" is rather different from such cases. There are almost no female characters but as most of the cast are not even human there is not such a clear identification figure for the reader and except for two supporting figures (Beorn and Bard) the are not traditionally manly. (But maybe my perspective is different because I read the Hobbit fairly late, around 15 when I would not easily identify with such fairy tale characters anyway.)

There is something to that. The story isn't all that traditional, and Bilbo and the dwarves are both not all that 'manly', considering they more often than not behave like fools, and only react to dangers rather than being able to lead the way. In that sense 'The Hobbit' would be much better literature for any girl than, say, TKKG.

48 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

Of course I do not know this, but I never had the impression that "The Hobbit" was considered a "boy's book" the way "Tom Sawyer" or "Treasure Island" might be.

These books are even more outdated as children books today than 'The Hobbit'. I read them as a boy, but I pretty much read anything. One can still read stuff like that but it is difficult to say whether young people today continue to relate to this kind of thing, not to mention the writing style.

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Gorn said:

Actually, as a father of a one-year old girl, "The Hobbit" is definitely near the top of my list of books which I plan to read to hear when she is a little older.

Word up. On the Terry Pratchett documentary, Rihanna Pratchett was talking about how her father read her The Hobbit as a little girl and she loved it and it helped set her on her path to becoming a writer.

[Jo498]

Yes, considering that TKKG was actually written in the 1980s (I am probably a few years older than you as I read some TKKG but was quickly growing out of it) is in some other ways more realist than Blyton and probably aimed at slightly older readers (I guess I read Blyton ca. ages 8-11 and TKKG ca. 10-13 or so), it is in many respect worse than Blyton. Blyton's most famous tomboy George is never really shown her place (or at least she never really accepts it) although Blyton "punishes" her several times when she tries to be more daring than the boys (she also clearly is more independent and headstrong than the well behaved Julian and Dick often disobeying direct orders by adults) and while the unruly tomboy character predates Blyton by decades these books were maybe not quite as square and conservative as we find them today.

Still, it is a pity that internationally Blyton was (or is) such a big seller whereas the far superior books by Arthur Ransome are mostly restricted to the Anglosphere. They are far better written, far more realistic (except for two but these are quietly acknowledged as stories made up by the children) and two of the most developed and convincing characters are girls ("Captain Nancy" and "Titty").

But this is a digression. I wonder, Lord Varys, which books from either "classics", children/YA or genre literature you consider not hopelessly backwards and irredemably sexist in potraying female characters and gender roles. And/or in which cases you consider this aspect as such a blow to the quality or general commendability. I think one runs the danger of painting oneself into a PC corner where one cannot enjoy a vast proportion of great art because one always wears spectacles of modern sensibilities wrt gender roles.

[Lord Varys]

12 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

Yes, considering that TKKG was actually written in the 1980s (I am probably a few years older than you as I read some TKKG but was quickly growing out of it) is in some other ways more realist than Blyton and probably aimed at slightly older readers (I guess I read Blyton ca. ages 8-11 and TKKG ca. 10-13 or so), it is in many respect worse than Blyton.

I actually got first into contact with TKKG in primary school, although I think because most many of my peers had elder siblings. I'm the oldest of three brothers and thus had to discover the real world all on my own.

But the problems with TKKG is not just gender roles but a lot of other stuff. Check this out:

http://www.bento.de/vintage/tkkg-so-rechts-waren-die-hobby-detektive-wirklich-1156667/

http://www.planet-interview.de/interviews/stefan-wolf/34059/

12 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

Blyton's most famous tomboy George is never really shown her place (or at least she never really accepts it) although Blyton "punishes" her several times when she tries to be more daring than the boys (she also clearly is more independent and headstrong than the well behaved Julian and Dick often disobeying direct orders by adults) and while the unruly tomboy character predates Blyton by decades these books were maybe not quite as square and conservative as we find them today.

Just read one or two of her books, and not the The Famous Five stuff but the Adventure series. Can't really comment on that. And I don't really know whether there is actually any good literature for children the kind I'm imagining here. The best thing I guess would be just to write about actual young people and not clichés. But that doesn't seem to be happening all that often in that genre.

12 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

Still, it is a pity that internationally Blyton was (or is) such a big seller whereas the far superior books by Arthur Ransome are mostly restricted to the Anglosphere. They are far better written, far more realistic (except for two but these are quietly acknowledged as stories made up by the children) and two of the most developed and convincing characters are girls ("Captain Nancy" and "Titty").

Never heard of that. But then, I'm not really an expert on literature for children.

12 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

But this is a digression. I wonder, Lord Varys, which books from either "classics", children/YA or genre literature you consider not hopelessly backwards and irredemably sexist in potraying female characters and gender roles. And/or in which cases you consider this aspect as such a blow to the quality or general commendability. I think one runs the danger of painting oneself into a PC corner where one cannot enjoy a vast proportion of great art because one always wears spectacles of modern sensibilities wrt gender roles.

Well, I think the genre could profit from a lot of new literature. Even Harry Potter is very conservative in regards to romances and the like. But one certainly can ask the question whether it is desirable to prepare children for the real world by giving them outdated stuff to read, not just where gender roles are concerned but also racism, outright sexism, and other things.

And while a lot of literature qualify as timeless classics right now mentalities do change. If you leave the people a choice pretty much nobody is going to read Goethe today, and even fewer people will go further back in time to read Baroque literature. The same is going to happen to most of 20th century literature.

Hell, even Shakespeare's characters get annoying when the women constantly whine about how they are weak and unable to protect themselves, etc. Just look at Elizabeth of York in Richard III or Lady Constance in The Life and Death of King John. 

[MorgulisMaximus]

On 2/12/2017 at 6:09 AM, baxus said:

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

 

It shows that if given a choice, your hypothetical daughter prefers a female heroine. Yet, as a father you unconsciously do not give her a choice. You believe The Hobbit is the superior book for your young daughter. Period, end of story. Parents have a huge influence on their children and you are unconsciously exerting your influence through your choices.

Later in life (teenage years), your daughter might well resent your choices for her. Not necessarily in the form of The Hobbit, but all the other decisions you make for her along the same lines of thinking. Not giving her the ability to choose what inspires her the most.  

[Jo498]

I picked my own books from the age of about 9 from a local library. And even before that, my parents did not pick all of them for me. I got books as presents, borrowed from friends, read the catalogue of a mailorder book club myself. My parents strongly disliked comic books and would not buy them for us but neither would they prevent me and my siblings from borrowing comic books from friends. (I think once we inherited a load of comic books from my older cousin and spend several days reading nothing else.)

Unless parents completely control the books a child has access to for several years, I doubt that one would resent that the parents strongly recommended or banned specific books.

[David Selig]

1 hour ago, MorgulisMaximus said:

 

It shows that if given a choice, your hypothetical daughter prefers a female heroine. Yet, as a father you unconsciously do not give her a choice. You believe The Hobbit is the superior book for your young daughter. Period, end of story. Parents have a huge influence on their children and you are unconsciously exerting your influence through your choices.

You do realise kids can read more than one book, right? Just because you give one book to your daughter with only male characters doesn't mean much. You can buy her 10 books with female male characters next. Or better, get her a library card and let her choose herself or buy her the books she picks.

Also your Ray example is a bit silly. The last movie where Luke was the main character came out more than 30 years ago. Of course modern kids don't care much for him and are likely to prefer the main character from the recent movie.

[Darth Richard II]

Whoa, whoa, WHOA.

 

It's Rey. not Ray.

(Of course she woudl pick Rey, Rey kicks ass)