Simplistic morality ruins LOTR

[Anonymous No.13265094]

I can't believe anyone treats this drivel written for children as actual literature. The totally black and white morality is like something out of a Goofus and Gallant book.

The scene at the end where the moral paragon Frodo lifts the wholly wicked Gollum over his head and tosses him and the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, putting an end to their evil forever, made me cringe so hard, it's just so unsophisticated.

A Song of Ice and Fire. Now there's a nuanced and morally ambiguous fantasy story.

[Anonymous No.13265140]

>>13265094
ASOIAF is objectively better than anything from the LOTR series. Martin has hundreds of characters who are morally ambiguous/neutral, well written, and fleshed out. There’s no silly childish simplistic “good vs bad” bullshit. If you want something that flat, generic, and unchallenging, read Harry Potter.

[قاسم !!Q8buEI7kZvM No.13265147]

>>13265094
>The scene at the end where the moral paragon Frodo lifts the wholly wicked Gollum over his head and tosses him and the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, putting an end to their evil forever, made me cringe so hard, it's just so unsophisticated.

Well played, not that anyone who disliked the books would get that far

[Anonymous No.13265149]

>>13265094
Can we just have some nonbait threads

[Anonymous No.13265154]

>>13265147
You can read something you dislike just for the sake of being able to criticise it in more depth. Op clearly enjoys false dichotomies in literature tho.

[Anonymous No.13265168]

>>13265094
It doesn't really though does it.
And in fact with gollum you've chosen the one character it explores evil with pretty well.
Gandalf repeatedly talks about how just because someone is evil doesn't mean they deserve to die and that he can sense a glimmer of kindness in gollum that doesn't yield to the evil intentions of the ring.
In fact the entire story revolves around an item that gradually turns good people into evil ones.
It's not black and white on what is or isn't evil at all.

[Anonymous No.13265427]

It only seems simple to idiots. You're talking about Frodo being a paragon but he literally fails his quest and accepts evil. These things are far more nuanced than you know.

[Anonymous No.13265468]

>>13265094
8/b8

[Anonymous No.13265474]

>>13265094
The Hobbit was written for children

[Anonymous No.13265480]

>>13265094
>Now there's a nuanced and morally ambiguous fantasy story.
But it really isn't.
Just because it is realistic, because the virtuous die, doesn't mean it has moral ambiguity. And very often it is much more blatant about morality then LotR, see Geoffrey and such.

[Anonymous No.13265492]

These retarded threads are getting tiring, desu

[Anonymous No.13265610]

>>13265094
Morality is black and white. Only degenerates want it to be otherwise.

[Anonymous No.13265660]

>>13265094
I know it's bait, but there are genuinely people who believe moral relativism is inherently good.

[Anonymous No.13265729]

>>13265094
Good bait

[Anonymous No.13265747]

>>13265660
It's not good or bad, it's just the way things are.

[Anonymous No.13265761]

>>13265094
What’s simplistic about the morality in LOTR?
>>13265610
Prove it.

[Anonymous No.13265772]

>>13265761
Mt. 12:13 He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.

[Anonymous No.13265785]

>>13265094
>A Song of Ice and Fire. Now there's a nuanced and morally ambiguous fantasy story.
I know some people who unironically believe this and I don't understand it because I don't see anything gray or ambiguous about Martins writing. When he's at his best he'll find ways to justify or seemingly justify evil actions but that doesn't makes those actions any less evil. Usually he's very black and white. The Others are evil, the Bolton's are evil, and the mad King is evil no matter how reasonable their actions seem to them.

I don't think he's much of an artist at all. Martin imitates artists and events from history, nothing in his work really conveys his experience as a person or his feelings as an author, unless you want to count the repetitive descriptions of food. This is why the series increasingly relies on the same cliches and tropes you see in movies and TV. Fakeout deaths and rape are the only ways he knows how to affect the reader.

[Anonymous No.13265865]

>DUDE MORAL GRAY!!!!
so fucking pathetic and pseudcore

[Anonymous No.13265869]

>>13265772
I said prove it, not quote your 2000 year old political manifesto like it’s some kind of established truth you deranged /pol/tard

[Anonymous No.13265893]

>>13265869
It is the word of God; therefore it is the truth. Whether you choose to accept it is irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.13265920]

>>13265474
And as such it is excellent.

[Anonymous No.13265957]

>>13265893
Who says?

[Anonymous No.13266010]

>>13265094
>morality isn't as simple as Tolkien portrays it.
>even pedophiles can be the good guys
>even Elrond, Aragorn and Galadriel were partly evil, since they were orcophobic.

liberals/leftists are the SCUM of the earth

[Anonymous No.13266020]

>>13265094
it's Catholic and richer than any other fiction

[Anonymous No.13266031]

Tax policy. Now THAT'S interesting.

[Anonymous No.13266040]

*Dodges Vietnam* Now let me show you what war is really like.

[Anonymous No.13266054]

>>1326509
>>13265140
>ASOIAF is objectively better
Lel the fat man hasn't even finished his books.
And, it struck me recently just how much his characters suck. They aren't even grey. You have evil dude 55 (Ramsay, Viscerys, etc) and the good people that sometimes screw up get tormented and lose , and then instead of making a come back, they keep losing, over and over and over. Why? Because the fat man is a product of the baby boomer generation. A fat nihilistic turd that rejects the idea of good triumphing over evil, tries to subvert your expectations because "muh grey" and leaves you with a story in which the only thing subversive is that the bad guys are on top for a longer time than usual.
If I want grey characters I can look at nigh bronze age texts like the iliad and find characters with greater depth from a man who was blind than the fat man can crap out onto his computer
And since he's such a fat nihilistic pos he can't finish his books because he might have to provide a not sucky ending or risk hurting the gravy train HBO created for him.
ASOIAF is overrated heavily and things like it are why so much new literature and film sucks.

[Anonymous No.13266115]

>>13265094
the greatest meme of the modern world is the idea that 'grey' morality is somehow right, and that petty 'relatable' villains are superior to genuine forces of evil

Morgoth has a far greater depth and complexity, not to mention authenticity, than any of these 'reasonable' villains you see in forgettable modern fiction.

you see the pure evil of Morgoth all around us in the modern world. go to any city and look at the disharmonious architecture arrogantly constructed almost as a mockery of the beautifully harmonious buildings that used to make cities a pleasure to look at in the 19th century, just as orcs are a mockery of elves.

[Anonymous No.13266133]

>>13265957
God, retard.

[Anonymous No.13266140]

>>13265747
>it's just the way things are
Yes GoT is how thinks are, a few virtuous men who get perpetually betrayed by the wicked around them.

[Anonymous No.13266152]

>>13265761
>Prove it.
Prove that 1+1=2, it's simply true by definition.
Moral relativism us an absurd meme conjured up by the virtueless so they can pretend everyone is as bad as them.

[Anonymous No.13266155]

>>13266133
Nice circular logic my air-headed friend.
>>13266152
Dishonest argument.

If there are objective morals, what are they?

[Anonymous No.13266167]

>>13266155
They are laws established by the Christian God.

[Anonymous No.13266176]

>Good vs. Evil
Based Tolkien, a honorary zoroastrian

[Anonymous No.13266177]

>>13266155
>If there are objective morals, what are they?
OP is a fag
/lit/ was never good
I fucked ur mom

[Anonymous No.13266181]

>>13265140
>There’s no silly childish simplistic “good vs bad”
Good vs Evil still exists in ASOIAF, it is simply mixed in the world and characters. (Hence ambiguous)

Based dualism wins again.

[Anonymous No.13266188]

>>13266155
>Dishonest argument.
Half of it is a description of people like you, who seek to reject virtue and the other is a demonstration of the absurdity of your demands.

>If there are objective morals, what are they?
"Show me a "1", oh it's obvious to anyone what it is put you can't point to it so it doesn't exist."
If I tell you that murder is bad, will you conjure up a situation in which murder seems to be justified? Just like a retard not wanting to understand what "1" is will start arguing that, if I show him a pebble to demonstrate the concept, the pebble can be broken in half and thus doesn't represent "1"?

[Anonymous No.13266199]

ASOIAF has the stupidest characters I've ever read.

all Tolkien's villains are in some way pitiable, while George R Martin simply makes cardboard psycho characters like Ramsay Snow, Cersei Lannister, Joffrey Lannister etc. etc. who are more like pantomime villains.

[Anonymous No.13266200]

>>13266181
>it is simply mixed in the world and characters.
No, it really is not.

[Anonymous No.13266213]

>>13266199
>Cersei
Not a villain

[Anonymous No.13266218]

>>13266213
She is a generic evil "witch", wicked to her core.

[Anonymous No.13266221]

>>13266115
this.
that building looks like the sawed off carcass of a xenomorph from movie Aliens.

[Anonymous No.13266232]

>>13266218
I don't view her as a villain. She loves her kids and most of her actions are based on protecting them.
That's about it though.

[Anonymous No.13266239]

>>13266213
she's an incredibly stereotypical villain.

just a selfish, power hungry woman. I think Martin attempted to make her 'ambiguous' by trying to display her maternal nature, but that was a total failure and never gave her any depth or made her sympathetic.

[Anonymous No.13266248]

>>13266232
>I don't view her as a villain
Maybe not, she is doing very little, usually just screaming or crying about what her previous wicked action have brought over her.

[Anonymous No.13266256]

>>13266232
that was such a hamfisted farce. I suppose you can't blame Martin for not having a clue on how to write a motherly character, being the repulsive shut-in pervert that he is, but her wicked actions never had any correlation with a protective motherly instinct. she never even displayed any emotion or care for them until they each died individually.

Martin waited for them to die, and THEN had Cercei have a cheap moment of grief before moving onto her next evil action.

[Anonymous No.13266272]

>>13266054
viserys wasn't evil, he did nothing wrong

just tainted from dany pov.

Joffrey ramsey gregor are fully evil tho

[Anonymous No.13266317]

>>13266181
No. Most of the “fan favourites” like Tyrion are extremely morally ambiguous. In the first two books he’s portrayed as a funny, witty, sharp little dwarf who doesn’t hesitate to speak his mind and has tons of classic lines that people quote. He’s also not evil for the sake of it. But as the story goes on he does some pretty bad shit (such as rape, murder, threats and some other things) and sometimes even senselessly. He isn’t solidly good nor solidly bad, he’s neutral. Same can be said even for Joffrey, who’s less of a sexual sadist in the books and more of a sociopath-lite who’s heavily influenced by his actual sociopath mother. He’s way younger in the books and is just an edgy spoiled brat. He doesn’t sexually get off on other people’s pain like in the show; most of what he does is for his family’s approval. Therefore he’s also a morally ambiguous character, but perhaps slightly more on the ‘bad’ side. Book Ramsay is pretty solidly “evil”, he’s a pure sadist (both sexually and nonsexually) who just loves and delights in causing maximum amounts of suffering and pain. This is one of the few cases where “bad” does clearly exist in ASOIAF, but Martin said Ramsay was mainly created for Theon’s development as a character. Stannis is also somewhat humourless and a dick in the books, but a lot of the things he does are simply because he’s a legitimate heir and has a right to the throne. He’s for justice and law and the show made him much worse than he was. Same with Twyin. I could list characters all day from GRRM’s series who are morally ambiguous and go against the false dichotomy of good vs evil.

[Anonymous No.13266336]

>>13265610
It is black and white, but everyone sees different blacks and whites. Some are superior or inferior.

[Anonymous No.13266342]

>>13265094
>Dude let's have characters everyone thinks are good and virtuous and then let's like kill them lol so amoral such grey areas of humanity lmao
And it's not even done in an interesting manner.

[Anonymous No.13266351]

>>13266342
...you do realise most of the characters that are dead in the show are not actually dead in the books, right? D&D’s adaption/writing is not canon. They usually butchered character roles and made everyone “kind of forget” about them until they were brought back randomly just to be given some stupid shitty underwhelming death. Stop watching so much TV and maybe read for once you piece of shit.

[Anonymous No.13266355]

https://youtu.be/KrGQDLOZWXg
Fat fuck eternally btfo

[Anonymous No.13266362]

>>13266351
Never watched a single episode, never read a single page. Never ever will I read George RR Martins disgusting drivel. All my knowledge of the series is what I've heard and read online.

[Anonymous No.13266367]

>>13266351
His point is absolutely right though,no matter if you read the books or watch the show. See Ned, Robb and do on, it 100% applies to them.

>>13266362
And miraculously you have perfectly captured the morality of the first book and parts of the other books, where *exactly* that keeps happening.

[Anonymous No.13266382]

in a just society Martin would be strung up with double-thick rope for his degeneracy.

our own consolation is that his poisonous seed will never pass on.

[Anonymous No.13266460]

>>13265094
I can't believe anyone treats this drivel written for children as actual literature. The totally black and white morality is like something out of a Goofus and Gallant book.
The scene at the end where the moral paragon Sonya turns the wholly wicked Raskolnikov over his head and condemns him into the ice of Siberia, putting an end to the story forever, made me cringe so hard, it's just so unsophisticated.

Dorian Gray. Now there's a nuanced and morally ambiguous story.

[Anonymous No.13266606]

>>13266188
If a pebble is broken in half it then represents 2, my friend.

[Anonymous No.13266641]

Come on guys. My post was obviously satirical and making fun of people who don't grasp the complexity of the depiction of good and evil in LOTR. I thought I was tipping my hand too much with the joke about Gollum and Frodo.

>>13265149
>>13265468
>>13265660
>>13265729
Not every instance of irony on here is bait lol

[Anonymous No.13266647]

>>13266232
In the books she doesn't give a shit about her kids at all other than as a vehicle to gain power.

[Anonymous No.13266651]

>assuming moral ambiguity is always better than simplistic morality

There's a place for both my nigga.

[Anonymous No.13266827]

it's weird reading the first book now because the Starks are blatantly the good guys and the Lannisters are blatantly evil aside from Tyrion. this whole "morally grey" vs. "black and white" argument that 4chan obsesses over doesn't even feel relevant. Jaime does later have a redemption arc, and Tyrion becomes more unstable, but ultimately the heart of the story is just Stark revenge porn. they suffered for a while, but in the end the Boltons, Freys, and Lannisters will be defeated and the Starks will reign. then there's all the stuff with Dany going from an idealistic liberator to a brutal tyrant but who cares.

[Anonymous No.13266838]

>>13266827
This is complete dumb downed bullshit as well as ignoring a bunch of other important plots, houses and characters. Congrats. You’re a retard

[Anonymous No.13266882]

>>13266838
ignoring what exactly? Stannis? people mainly like him because they relate to his aspergers, and also because Ned supported his claim, so it fits together with the Stark circlejerk.
some people find the Ironborn interesting but nobody really cares about Dorne.
Frey pies and "The North remembers" are the most epic moments with fans because muh Starks will finally have their revenge.

[Anonymous No.13267396]

>>13266827
>ultimately the heart of the story is just Stark revenge porn
Lol?
In the books nothing of the kind happens, it's just the virtous suffering at the hands of the wicked.

[Anonymous No.13267406]

>>13267396
Catelyn Stark doesn't come back to life and fall ass first into a group of loyal soldiers who are happy to hunt down Freys? Yeah, nothing of the kind.

[Anonymous No.13267431]

>>13267406
Oh God, yeah faint memories. Maybe Martin was an even worse Hack then I thought...

[Anonymous No.13267466]

>>13266460
>Dorian Gray

I can't believe anyone treats that drivel written for children as actual literature. The totally black and white morality is like something out of a Goofus and Gallant book.
The scene at the end where the moral paragon Lord Henry turns the wholly wicked Dorian over his head and traps him inside the magic painting forever, putting a permanent end to his wickedness, made me cringe so hard, it's just so unsophisticated.
Lord of the Rings, now there's a nuanced and morally sophisticated story.

[Anonymous No.13267501]

I can kinda see the depth in Melkor, but what depth does Sauron have?

[Anonymous No.13267535]

>>13267501
Neither of them are prominent characters in the Lord of the Rings. They're in the backdrop.

[Anonymous No.13268016]

>>13265094
>people will fall for this bait

[Anonymous No.13268100]

>>13267501
The very fact that Sauron is in the backdrop is his depth. Sauron is portrayed as the dark lord, but is actually a complete coward.

Throughout the series the fellowship deduce Sauron’s state of mind based on the actions of his armies and on his failing intrigue. Through this, you can sense Sauron’s state of mind begin to unravel as Gandalf and Aragorn assume their mantle as he grows increasingly more paranoid about his own borders as two (three) little insignificants crawl into his domain.

In the movies they don’t go into detail about “what Sauron is thinking right now,” but in the books they (Aragorn and Gandalf namely) base a lot of their actions on deceiving and exploiting Sauron’s cowardice and fear

[Anonymous No.13268121]

>>13265094
Bait, but it's a shame how many people unironically believe all that.

[Anonymous No.13268161]

>>13265147
I didn't even notice that part. The discussion's so common and tiresome that literally everything in between "I can't believe anyone treats this drivel..." and "A Song of Fire and Ice" becomes completely invisible. The CIA could be sandwiching subliminal programming between those first and last bits all of /lit/ and we'd never even know.

[Anonymous No.13268629]

Language is hard. This was maybe my answer to Martin, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. A Song of Ice and Fire had a very modern philosophy: that if the king was a good man, he would get his dick chopped off. We look at history and it’s not that simple. Martin can say that Bran became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Martin doesn’t ask the question: How was High Valyrian conjugated? Does the pluperfect tense of Bravosi derive from the suffix? How did dragons understand the verb “dracarys”? And what about all those lost Westerosi languages? By the end of the war, the Night King is gone but all of the autists aren’t gone – they’re in the Godswood, watching beautiful sisters be beautifully raped. Did Bran pursue a policy of monolingualism and kill all other languages? Even the little baby dialects in their little dialect regions?

[Anonymous No.13268643]

The film adaptations were better anyways

[Anonymous No.13268660]

>>13268629

[Anonymous No.13268710]

>>13265094
>Now there's a nuanced and morally ambiguous fantasy story
>there's evil ice necromancer zombie monsters that all the living must band together against in a clear metaphor for climate change
Such subtlety, such nuance

[Anonymous No.13268723]

>>13268629
>the verb "dracarys"
Can someone PLEASE fix this pasta

[Anonymous No.13268737]

>>13265094
>The scene at the end where the moral paragon Frodo lifts the wholly wicked Gollum over his head and tosses him and the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, putting an end to their evil forever, made me cringe so hard, it's just so unsophisticated.

yeah no shit, believe it or not, this is peak genre fiction (despite fanboys claiming otherwise)

if you want high brow stuff just read homer and goethe

[Anonymous No.13268751]

>>13266115
>'grey' morality

no such thing, label only used by moralfags

[Anonymous No.13268764]

>>13268737
>and goethe
A perverted imitator of art

[Anonymous No.13268778]

>>13265094
>The scene at the end where the moral paragon Frodo lifts the wholly wicked Gollum over his head and tosses him and the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, putting an end to their evil forever, made me cringe so hard, it's just so unsophisticated.
wew

[Anonymous No.13268782]

Read the Silmarillion for complexity then

[Anonymous No.13268803]

>>13268782
>a david vs goliath reference


wow so deep and complex!!!!!!

[Anonymous No.13269113]

>>13268803
How is that a David vs Goliath reference?

[Anonymous No.13269142]

>>13269113

[Anonymous No.13269161]

>>13265610
It's not black vs white though. The world is not made out of struggles between black and white on a grand scale, just struggles, and black and white are mixed everywhere.

[Anonymous No.13269179]

>>13268643
I, too, enjoyed Legolas using a shield to slide down stairs

[Anonymous No.13269301]

>>13269113
Everything big vs small is now a David vs Goliath reference

[Anonymous No.13269312]

Tolkein's dialogue is drier than a nun's vagina.

[Anonymous No.13269318]

>>13269312
but a nun in GRRM's books would be doing nothin but suckin and fuckin

[Anonymous No.13269364]

>>13265094
>complexity is superior

[Anonymous No.13269392]

related question, are there any good fantasy books/series without explicit antagonists? I'm exhausted with all the Big Bad this and Forces of Chaos that and Big Demon Destroys World bullshit

[Anonymous No.13269946]

>>13269392
Prince of Nothing maybe

[Anonymous No.13270999]

>>13268723
It’s an imperative verb, what’s wrong about it?

[Anonymous No.13271017]

>>13266040
This.
And all these while Tolkien witnessed the horrors of two world wars, participating in one

[Anonymous No.13271127]

>>13269142
Yeah I'm the idiot for asking because it's obvious

[Anonymous No.13271139]

>>13266317

Someone who rapes and murders is "solidly bad". Your sense of morality is fucked beyond repair if you think the fact that he is funny and witty somehow makes a rapist and murderer into a "neutral" character.

[Anonymous No.13271857]

>>13266054
Please read the books before posting :)

[Anonymous No.13271916]

>>13271139
>>Someone who rapes
Except he didn’t rape anyone. Take your SJW shit elsewhere.

[Anonymous No.13272018]

>>13268629

[Anonymous No.13272026]

>>13265729
This
>>13265094
I know this is bait, but I hate edgy contrarians who only protest Tolkien's moral system (much like GRRM) and never once realize not his beautiful world building and ethereal words which no one has surpassed to date.

[Anonymous No.13272027]

>>13269312
dialogue isn't that important
every time you see some shitty fanfiction the story is consisting mostly of dialogue

[Anonymous No.13272036]

>>13272026
*and never once realize his beautiful.

[Anonymous No.13272395]

>>13272026
>>13272036
GURM said it was a quibble
so any GOT fag taking his words seriously is a pleb.

[Anonymous No.13272405]

>>13268737
that doesn't even happen in the book you based retard

[Anonymous No.13272418]

>>13272405
fuck off, tolkien is pseud trash

[Anonymous No.13272430]

>>13272418
spit in my asshole and gurgle the mixture you myth-less american

[Anonymous No.13272446]

>>13272430
fiction>non fiction>genre fiction

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!/qKRybJPyoB No.13272458]

>>13272446
Dumb meme

[Anonymous No.13272470]

>>13272458

[Anonymous No.13272673]

>>13265785
People tend to mistake darkness for moral ambiguity and confuse that in turn with moral depth and complexity.

ASoIaF is mostly just dark. Bad shit happens all around, and people die. Dark books, however, still can easily have very well defined heroes and villains. For example the Warhammer setting is exaggeratedly dark, but most books in it have clearly defined heroes and villains.

Now we can discuss whether ASoIaF is morally ambiguous, that is, whether we're supposed to be in doubt about the side we should root for. I'd argue that it mostly isn't, and even when it is, that is achieved by making all sides equally bad, which is easy as shit.

And certainly ASoIaF is not morally deep and complex. It doesn't really offer any insightful commentary on human nature, and I'd argue that while it may raise significant questions regarding morality, it never really answers them.

[Anonymous No.13272857]

>>13271857
What is wrong with what he posted?

[Anonymous No.13272912]

>>13270999
It's not. It means "dragonfire"

[Anonymous No.13272923]

Simple is good, unironically. I think that's the beauty of it

[Anonymous No.13273032]

>>13265140
>>13265094
dude there are different kinds of stories
straightforward simple germanic stories are invaluable to society and children in particular

[Anonymous No.13273461]

>>13273032
>straightforward simple germanic stories are invaluable to society and children in particular
You neonazis really rustle my jimmies. Back to /pol/ with you.

[Anonymous No.13273475]

>>13273032
This, even if you don't believe this on an esoteric dimension (which is worth considering btw), it's still good to stay in touch with the various archetypal myths and stories of your people

On an esoteric plane though it's absolutely vital. Kids should be raised reading things like the Brothers Grimm and similar collections of folklore.