Lord of the Rings and ASOIAF/Game of Thrones

Quick disclaimer: I haven’t actually ready any of ASOIAF (A Song of Ice and Fire, for those who don’t know, written by George R.R. Martin), though I have been watching the HBO adaptation (Game of Thrones.) Since I’m talking about ASOIAF in pretty broad terms, I don’t think that will be a problem, but if you notice any mistakes, please let me know!

There are definite similarities between ASOIAF and LOTR, but that’s not saying much. In some way, pretty much every work in the fantasy genre has been influenced in some way by LOTR. Tolkien is considered the Father of Modern Fantasy - while he wasn’t the first modern fantasy writer, he was certainly the most successful, and he established many of the standard elements of high fantasy (or epic fantasy, they’re both really the same thing), the genre that ASOIAF falls under. 

There are four really basic characteristics of high fantasy. Below I’ll is them each, explain how they were used by Tolkien, and then how they’re used by Martin.

1. A Secondary World: The most important characteristic of a high fantasy story is that it takes place in another world, as opposed to our own “real” world. Tolkien was especially important in this development, creating a stunningly detailed world (Arda) with its own creation mythos, history, geography, cultures, the works. Martin has similarly set his stories in their own secondary world (Westeros and the surrounding lands.) While Westeros doesn’t seem to be all that similar to Middle Earth, the very creation of a secondary world is Tolkien’s influence.
2. Multiple Points of View: Tolkien was actually sort of revolutionary for his time, from what I’ve heard, in that he wrote a fantasy novel that didn’t stick with just one character’s journey. Instead of following Frodo around for the entire book, Tolkien allowed the reader to travel with other characters, and thereby allowing him to write a much more complicated story. Without these switching points of view the entire sub-plots of the destruction of Isengard, and all the battles in Rohan and Gondor, would had to have been seriously simplified, or cut entirely. Martin seems to have taken this technique and amplified it by a thousand. Whereas Tolkien wrote his points of view in large chunks (for example, Two Towers is basically split into two halves - the first half is the story of Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Merry, and Pippin. Then, in the second half the book, all we see is Frodo and Sam’s points of view), Martin allows for smaller chunks of point of view that change more often. If the books are structured similarly to the show, then he’s flipping back and forth between characters constantly, allowing the reader (or viewer) to keep track of several storylines simultaneously.
3. Sagas: Tolkien also stood out for having written multiple book within the same secondary world. Though he intended for Lord of the Rings to be published as a single book, the insistence of his publishers on a trilogy of smaller books unintentionally started a long-standing tradition of fantasy trilogies. But even beyond that, writing Lord of the Rings in the same world as The Hobbit was a big deal (and publishing The Silmarillion after Tolkien’s death only added to this.) Many many authors have Tolkien to thank for this tradition. Not only did Tolkien write a saga, he successfully marketed it, making it a viable option for future writers and publishers. And while Martin has obviously not been limited to a trilogy, the ability to spread his story out into multiple books is, at its root, thanks to authors like Tolkien.
4. Good vs. Evil: This is the one area that Martin has really not followed Tolkien in. Lord of the Rings (and The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion) is in many ways a story of good vs. evil. And, for the most part, Tolkien makes it very very easy to tell which side is which. Morality in Middle Earth is, oftentimes, literally black and white (Gandalf the White, the White City, the Black Riders, Mordor = “the black land”). We have a very clear, noticeably pure, protagonist who has a morally clear mission to do something that will defeat a clearly horrible master of evil and save the whole world. Martin has definitely rejected this model. This world - and his characters - are all about the grey area, and moral relativism abounds. (The only exception I can think of is the Others/White Walkers, because they seem pretty solidly bad, but maybe those who’ve read the books know something I don’t?) And because of the absense of this good vs. bad element, the very structure of Martin’s story is wildly different from Tolkien’s.

There are other things, of course. Apparently Martin said in an interview that the relationship between Jon Snow and Sam Tarly is based on Frodo and Sam. And there are several names from Middle Earth that show up in ASOIAF (though, to be fair, Tolkien used so many names, it’s hard to avoid any overlap, intentionally or otherwise.) But there don’t seem to be many other major parallels between the two worlds. 

Again, having not read the books myself, this is based on my knowledge from the show only. So if you have corrections, or if you just disagree, let me know and I’ll add it all to the discussion!

SOURCES: Wikipedia’s article on High Fantasy, LOTR, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, HBO’s Game of Thrones