The War of the Pens: George R.R. Martin Versus Brandon

An interesting aspect of indulging in literature for so long is that similar to a wine connoisseur who can differentiate a pinot noir from a chardonnay, I can tell one author from another. I can smell with just the tip of my nose, the sharp scent of a Shakesperean blank verse. With my eyes, I can find a hint of Tolkien in almost all the fantasy I have ever read, with its purple hue of fantastical worldbuilding and a necessity for intricate detail. It isn’t as hard to understand the qualities of an author if you scrutinize them like the black dots upon a ladybug’s back. Sometimes it’s in syntax or a specific style of writing. An American author of the early 19th century is obvious amongst European authors, as the former subscribes to a raw, blunt, practical energy which enforces strength and individualism, for example. However, the most curious of all differences amongst writers, which sets does not just set one’s technique apart from another, but instead one’s psyche and personal conviction: theme. A theme is a tricky little thing to catch, it flies too high and dives too low; it knows how to camouflage and blend in under the words of a character or it can trick you, like the back of an Owl Butterfly. But it can never escape. Stories and their themes, like the humans who wrote them, press a fingerprint into the heart of creation and can ever escape the watchful eye of one who has the patience to internalize literature’s beautiful lessons.

Let us take two authors who have already solidified themselves as giants in the world of fantasy: George R.R. Martin and Brandon Sanderson. Their careers have been vast, as their body of work has been. Sanderson finished the original tale of the Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin’s work frequently evolved into visual adaptions, even if there is still no announcement for a film adaptation of his most recent book, Winds of Winter. If my frustration isn’t palpable enough, when one has opened the not-so-secret wardrobe of the realm of fantasy zealots, these two names show up with great prominence. Honestly, they feel inescapable, but both are craftsmen of their work. I was pleasantly jarred at the differences in Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (ASIOAF) and Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives. I have gathered one main difference between their primary texts regarding their subgenres of fantasy.

Both ASOIAF and the Stormlight Archives rely on the medium of fantasy to convey their messages. Both seemingly take great notes from pioneers of the genre, such as Tolkien. This is apparent in their detailed and otherworldly settings which seem as livable as Manhattan to a New Yorker. ASOIAF is set on the continent of Westeros, and the Stormlight Archives is placed upon the planet and continent of Roshar (It is an intergalactic, entangled setting of other intercrossing works). Two important terms to gather when speaking of these novels are the concepts of High and Low fantasy. High fantasy can be defined as consisting of a world which does little to mirror our own. For instance, in the Stormlight Archives much of the culture and structure of protagonist, Kaladin’s world, holds little bearings to our own. Magic is an expectable and prominent feature in this story, used similar to how electricity is used in our reality, under the name of Stormlight. Beasts of burden are creatures which can be likened to werewolves or dragons. Culturally, arts deemed feminine are reading, writing, and anything tactical, and men are seen as uncouth for daring to participate in such manners of expression. Lastly, people are put into a caste system based upon their eye color, the lighter, such as blues to greens, having the most power, and browns to blacks left comparable to Hindu Untouchables. From this we gather that our society would puzzle this world as we are puzzled by this world. Magic and magical beasts are commonplace and there is an overarching ‘’saving the world’’ plot of immense size and scale which is also prominent in High Fantasy, most notably the Lord of the Rings. This is textbook High fantasy and demonstrates that Sanderson has a desire to construct a world out of the fabric of air and alien to Earth. His interest is not in a complete reflection of our reality, but instead a subversive method to show us the troubles of our society, such as social classes and inequality. When building his genre, he takes into account a creativity that must be inspired, but also unique to itself, where everything feels like a distorted reality.

I am fifteen, but reading the Stormlight Archives made me feel like an infant once again, curious at these concepts which appear to mock my reality. This greatly differs from Martin who uses history as direct portrayal of reality. There is little mistaking it. Martin is heavily influenced by the Middle Ages. Events such as the Red Wedding, are shown to be a parallel circumstance to The Black Dinner, a true historical event. There are knights, wars, political intrigue, a monarchy, feudalism, language which uses sparse newfound terms and actually takes from previous forms of English, a social structure which reflects not just European medieval history, but the complete Eurasian network on one continent, as we see with the Summer Isles, The Free Cities and Dorne. These examples are apparent enough that ASOIAF could easily be an alt-history text, and little would change of it. Magic has little concern within these books, but it does exist, and it also does paradoxically impact its plot.

Stay with me, but I will have to introduce my other twinning term of Low Fantasy. Defined as fantasy which occurs in a world that heavily reflects or could truly be our own, like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson for an extreme metric which falls upon Urban Fantasy. We see here that in a normal world, set in the basis of reality, magic is not assimilated or normal. Instead, it impedes our characters and pushes them into the unknown. It is as new to them as it is to us. We are learning with Jon Snow as he discovers that he might be a Warg. We are as astounded as Dany when her dragons catch from their eggs. We treat the Others as much as a tall tale, even when greeted to them a multitude of times with the assistance of dramatic irony. Martin reflects and critiques our world, not by putting us in a new one where criticism must be newly constructed, but by presenting us with well, us. He tells us our history and asks us to answer for ourselves how we feel about it and does it by listening not to our future or present, but to our past. Martin demonstrates, with Low Fantasy, that the wars, the oligarchs, the death, and the Others have happened before. It is not your fault that you did not know of it summer child, but it will be your fault if you continue to remain sightless under the white silks of ignorance.

Both authors with their subgenres, do as books and art in general always do with a whetstone of their written work: they sharpen the world’s blade until you can see your own reflection within it. Then they hold that blade to your temple as if fitting for the kill, but instead of drilling the bastard sword into your skull, they place your clumsy fingers to the pommel and ask you, “What are you going to do about it?’’