Does GRRM Steal While Tolkien Created New and Original Things?

[@octapusxft]

Tolkien took a lot of ideas from the Norse mythology. Think about the Rings of Nibelung, Beowolf etc. Also Midgard means Middle Earth. But Tolkien was one of the first ones to do that back when it was a much harder job to do than now

[@arvaakuka8568]

This is also an important point. Tolkien's research, knowledge and devotion to the world of epics was what solidified him as an excellent story teller and world-builder. He never winged it like Martin does (because Martin focuses much more on plot and characters, which come from his personal life).

[@AEDVINtus]

Even more than that honestly. Turin is literally Kullervo from Finnish myth. Tolkien didn't try to hide it either, he wanted to bring together old myths and tell them from a British perspective.

[@octapusxft]

@@AEDVINtusIf anything, his work becomes an appetizer to make one look for more of these old myths

[@alanpennie8013]

Tolkien never much liked being compared to Wagner...

[@davidu1704]

Also The Green Knight poem

[@Longshanks1690]

YMS’ Kimba the White Lion video is honestly the most in depth and definitive debunking of this argument, even if he was talking about Kimba and Lion King instead of LOTR and ASOIAF. The overall point remains the same that just because some elements are similar, that doesn’t mean the overall experience of the art is therefore exactly the same. You need to delve beyond the surface level details and examine how the elements used inform the world, characters and themes of the art being created. Because when you do that, just because you can point out some basic similarities by virtue of them being in the same genre, you’ll see it’s not the same as having essentially the same experience because ASOIAF, LOTR, HP and so forth are all so, so different in how they handle these aspects that drawing comparisons to the few aspects that are similar to make Tolkien look better just because he did it first is beyond absurd.

[@Longshanks1690]

“The Lion King stole from Kimba” Don’t do this to me guys, pls. 😭

[@mrfoozy47]

My favorite “argument” is when people point out how the names Simba and Kimba are similar and so “THEREFORE they stole the name Kimba and just changed it to Simba” because no, that’s the opposite of what happened, Simba is a word that means Lion, so it was literally the creators of KIMBA who took the word Simba and used it as the basis for the name.

[@Longshanks1690]

@@mrfoozy47 *HMMMMM SUSPICIOUS!!!*

[@BLooDCoMPleX]

Hey man did you know Lion King idea was stolen from Kimba the White Lion???

[@iwillchopyoudown3100]

@@BLooDCoMPleXno it didn’t

[@dantheman4838]

Anyone who has read Paradise Lost, The Epic of Gilgamesh or any form of Celtic, Norse, Egyptian or Hindu mythology, knows where Tolkien took his inspiration from.

[@Blood_Video_company]

also tolkien's world building has some issues ... like outside his linguistics, he keeps his ideas close to the chest.

[@dasaggropop1244]

and those took inspiration from others, i mean if you look at the core stories that humans like to tell each other its really all the same down through the ages. love, loss, bravery, treason, death, victory, treasure and some sort of transcendence, dreams, divinity, doom and darkness...thats basically it

[@migarsormrapophis2755]

This is what drives me crazy whenever people say AI art bots are 'stealing' art because they _learned_ from other human artists. If that's theft, then basically _all_ human artists are thieves. Almost nobody just creates something _out of nothing._

[@7PlayingWithFire7]

​@@migarsormrapophis2755No cause humans can be inspired. AI directly steal.

[@ser_ryon_vine6392]

Lol I was gonna say something along those lines

[@baerververgaert1308]

Tolkien's depth mostly comes from the development of the languages and the implications that come from that, which most people only experience a little of. If you go nerding on LotR, you can lose yourself for hours learning symbols and languages and lore. The same is possible for George, but it mostly involves theorizing. Which is alright if that's your thing, but it is a completely different axis. For Tolkien you look up stuff online, as with wikipedia, but for George you need to sit down and wonder if you believe what you just read, as with critical thinking. Both are fun, but the axis of depth is just different.

[@alialmuhanna4938]

I like your use of the word axis. Well done.

[@psevdhome]

I think Tolkien and GRRM clearly pay homage to the things they love and put them in their stories. And both are creators that put a new spin on the material they adapt. I love Tolkiens myth diving and Martin's "it's a pulp scifi plot but make it fantasy" -stories.

[@patbau96]

IMO when people talk about "originality," what they really mean is stealing from enough sources that you can't trace the inspiration back to a single thing. That's what set Tolkien apart from the less ambitious fantasy writers of his era, and it's what set Martin apart from the Tolkien clones.

[@adamweisshaup]

I have never heard of obscure plagiarism being described as originality.

[@BoRickersonMcFoosters]

@@adamweisshaupwhat’s original? Nothing new under the sun and almost everything is inspired by SOMETHING

[@pieceofgosa]

"If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition." - Reverend Charles Caleb Colton, 1820

[@pieceofgosa]

@@adamweisshaup you've seriously never heard the phrase "to steal from one person is plagiarism, to steal from everyone is research" ? Were you perhaps born on another planet ? It is an exceedingly common truism & I would be genuinely astonished if you've never encountered it in some form or another.

[@b1bbscraz3y]

and to me even if George did "steal" his deep lore from real history and other writers, he made it different enough and wrote it well enough to feel like good world history that's interesting to go through hours reading about

[@peterm246]

One of the reasons that Tolkien’s writing may be less resonant today is that there is a huge amount of Christian and specifically catholic imagery in the book which makes themes and ideas “pop out” and become clearer. If your missing all that, I wonder if some of it just won’t land for you, like how its easy to miss some of the humour in Shakespeare because we are so separated from the cultural context. A bit of a long winded example: almost every line of the passage Carmine quoted is evocative of Scripture or of prayer. The line “go to the darkness prepared for you” is commonly used in house blessings and other prayers where demonic forces are commanded. Having a sense of that makes the dynamics of the scene sharper. This is a demonic force being repelled not principally with force or arms but force of will. The power is in the command rather than a blade or magic power. It then makes the moment when the command is ignored more powerful, it shows how desperate the moment is, evil is claiming its moment has come.

[@lukacvitkovic8550]

I've ran into a quote that spoke about Tolkien as being like a mount Fuji of fantasy. He's either in the background, omitted on purpose, or you are standing on him.

[@AntirisDark]

that quote comes from Terry Pratchett

[@johnbeans2000]

And Tolkien stood on other mountains.

[@hughmoore2143]

Ursula Le Guin belongs on your Mt Rushmore. Hugely influential, way ahead of her time. It’s true that a lot of her work was Sci Fi, but quite a bit was pure fantasy, and ever her Sci Fi is pretty fantasy-based.

[@surfthetsunami5596]

Also was the first to have a magic school concept

[@CallousCarter]

I've only read the Dispossessed and the Left Hand of Darkness by her (enjoyed both a lot), would it be worth me picking up some of her fantasy too? If so which ones?

[@spacelia3920]

@@CallousCarterI’d recommend Earthsea - it’s a really good fantasy series that’s quite original

[@justsomedude5727]

Tolkien didn't have LOTR planned (or at least, not fleshed out) when writing the Hobbitt, the one ring in the Hobbitt is just a magical ring and LOTR actually retcons the Hobbitt and Gandalf just says Bilbo lied about the ring and later editions of the Hobbitt were changed.

[@Arkenald]

What most folks don't release is that they've only ever read the 2nd edition of the Hobbit which was released in 1951, (the first edition being from 1937) which had a number of changes to the Story; the biggest being around Golem and the Ring, to make the two stories connect into each other.

[@Conor42]

Other people have mentioned that Tolkien was inspired by myths, but I’d like to point out that Tolkien was also inspired by another writer Lord Dunsany. Lord Dunsany wrote The Gods of Pegana 50 years before the lord of the rings. Lord Dunsany was also a primary inspiration for Lovecraft. I would argue George’s work is more a descendant of Lord Dunsanys work than Tolkiens. Tolkien was not the first generation of modern fantasy, he was the second generation, but I think often in art the wider public give the second generation credit for inventing the genre.

[@duncanstrother662]

But Dunsanys was undoubtedly inspired by someone else

[@Arkenald]

The original story of The Hobbit was not significantly connected to over arching lore of Middle Earth. There was a plethora of changes made between the initial release in 1937 and the revision second edition of 1951 which was released as a lead in to the Lord of the Rings.

[@alanpennie]

Yep. Tolkien has said that he threw in a few references to his legendarium to give the story a sense of historical depth. But they came in useful when he began writing LOTR.

[@alialmuhanna4938]

2:27 To speak on adding elements to the story, GRRM seems to have though up the Blackfyres while writing Storm, since there was no mention of them in Thrones or Clash. Steven Atwell in a chapter by chapter analysis on his blog Race for the Throne pointed this out; three chapters in a row the characters bring up Daemon Blackfyre. I believe the phrase Steven used was along the lines of "There goes GRRM bringing up Daemon like a little kid showing off his new toy".

[@overlookers]

The Kimba debacle has long been debunked. Other than the crew possibly taking points from the film, _Yeelen_ and/or The Epic of Sundiata- The Lion King was always just "Bamlet": Bambi Hamlet with Lions.

[@Longshanks1690]

Much as I love Tolkien, there’s a bunch of people who worship him as an unparalleled genius in whose shadow everyone that came after him cannot compare or hope to be original because everything he wrote was so unique and everyone else is just derivative of him. This is of course nonsense. Tolkien “stole” plenty from history, mythology and other previous writers, if we’re using this definition, because how could he not? How can he add onto an existing literary tradition if he’s not aware of it? He was not summoned from the ether unaware of all previous human culture to give us this unique work like the Quran being revealed to Muhammad, he was of course influenced by things he’d read about before he even came up with the idea of writing LOTR. It’s silly to say that if something is similar to a prior work, then not only was it definitely influenced by that other work, but the author was knowingly and intentionally stealing from it. Sometimes people just come to similar ideas because of factors unrelated to one another. Because of Tolkien’s popularity, people find this unbelievable because of course anything in fantasy _must_ be trying to copy Tolkien. And I’m not saying that doesn’t happen because there are definitely lazy and derivative authors out there. But the number of people who are quick to jump to charges of plagiarism because of surface level similarities without examining the actual depth of how these aspects are executed by different authors is really quite tiresome.

[@TheInfectous]

It's the same crowd that claims that classical music is so much better than modern music... despite rarely listening to it, knowing nothing about music theory and barely knowing anything past surface level information about the greater sphere they're talking about. It's just people wanting to claim an aesthetic of sophistication.

[@ArodWinterbornSteed]

Tolkien borrowed from everything he could get his hands on and synthesised a beautiful and coherent world. Everything is derivative, those who see farther than others do so by standing upon the shoulders of giants. Genius will not be found in the particular atoms of story craft, rather it is in the composition. For me, Tolkien embodies philosophy through literature, and well do I love him. [Edit] ::For me GRRM is the first fantasy author to approach Tolkien in this regard::

[@christiancividino455]

Exactly Tolkien is just modern syncretism. It existed since the very first mythology. Every mythology adopts, hybridizes or supplants previously established myths. It’s all discussed in Joseph Campbell’s Masks of God series. Tolkien does a great job emulating those natural processes so it feels organic and genuine as if it came from centuries of tradition.

[@laurenceroberts1]

"The Lion King stole from Kimba." YMS would like to know your location.

[@OfficialRedTeamReview]

YMS? that is a name I have not heard in a loooong time. What did he say about it?

[@Longshanks1690]

@@OfficialRedTeamReviewHe made a 3 hour video exposing why the claims about Lion King plagiarising Kimba are bullshit, and based on people who haven’t watched Kimba parroting the claims of other people who haven’t watched Kimba either.

[@OfficialRedTeamReview]

@@Longshanks1690 3 hours!?!? aint nobody got time for that but thank you for the TL;DR

[@wangtoriojackson4315]

I am rather partial to a quote by filmmaker Jim Jarmusch on the subject of "originality" and "stealing" in creative works: “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: 'It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to.'" Ever since I ran across this quote years ago, it has been a strong influencing factor on my own creative process, and I think it would be beneficial for most peoples' creative processes if they really take it to heart and understand it. Way too many people are too hung up on trying to be "original", when that's not really what you should be aiming for (since it is basically impossible).

[@ricebix]

yeah I'm trying to write a book with my brother. We'll come up with ideas then one of us will read a new book and find out they've already been done before

[@sorsha295]

Weirdly enough I cried when Theoden died on my second read of LoTR, i dont even know why

[@archeogeek315]

15:00 I remember George saying that quote in the context of an inertview. He was talking specifically about the first book "a game of thrones" and how in the begining he made reference to stuff like kings and heroes to give the impression of a rich world with out having fleshed out anything about their story so it was more an illusion, that's when he made that comparaison to Tolkien lord of the ring who made reference to stuff Tolkien had already fleshed out in is head. Of course it was the begining and he did later write more lore about is world.

[@equinoxomega3600]

I think that you are failing to consider why some movies and media are iconic. They often did something for the first tine and then, because it was a good idea, it got copied over and over again. Once one has seen all the knock-offs, the original doesn't seen that original or iconic anymore. The new ideas from back then have become (overused) tropes. Prime example for this would be Citizen Kane.

[@MatteBlacke]

Nothing is really created from nothing.

[@coreyander286]

Except for everything. Maybe.

[@uosdwis-r-dewoh14]

Oh Preston, you know "A Wizard of Earthsea" came out in 1968, right? And The Worst Witch series was written in the 70s? And Terry Pratchett and the Unseen University in the 80s Professor X and the X school since like the 60? Groosham Grange by Anthony Horowitz Im not saying JK Rowling pinched everything but shes not patient zero for this magic school stuff.

[@spacelia3920]

Yeah, she’s just the one who got the most popular so many think she was the one who invented it. But in actuality, Le Guin’s roast of her is the best the description. “She has many virtues, but originality is not one of them”

[@chuckstein4455]

Preston, Tolkien did not have the intention of writing LOTR. The Hobbit took elements from his mythology but it takes place in a different world. A fairy world. Only when his publisher begged him to write more Hobbit stories did he start what eventually became LOTR. During the first 1-2 years of that process he started to come upon elements of the book that screamed for Tolkien to move things (The Shire, Misty Mountains etc.) to his own fictional universe- what we call Middle Earth. So he created the lore for the Rings, connecting the story with what he had already thought for the First and Second Ages, and filling in the gaps (Arnor & Gondor, Rings of Power etc).

[@peterm246]

For anyone interested, the video about the Simpsons Preston is referring to is “the simpsons is good again” by Super Eyepatch Wolf.

[@loki_l_1380]

As an aspiring writer myself my outlook is this: Spending time worrying whether or not you're being original enough or if you're just a hack who's writing stories on the backs of other, better writers who 'came up with it first' is a complete waste of your energy. Its one thing if you outright copy scenes or plotlines verbatim, but writing your own spin on stories you love should never be thought of as hacky. So long as youre doing it in your own voice, implementing your own perspective on life and the human condition, and writing the kind of stories that excite you then you are NOT a hack.

[@Liz-xq2wi]

Tolkien lifted heavily from Norse mythology. But when he did so many of the Sagas hadn’t been translated or translated well into English, so a lot of Norse mythology first entered the Anglophone world through his work by proxy.

[@mykofanes]

It's not called stealing, it's called intertextuality. If something isn't intertextual, it's often boring.

[@amysteriousviewer3772]

I think you're underselling Tolkien a bit here. The point is not that he created everything from scratch and without inspiration but the incredible amount of depth and detail of what he created. Not many fantasy series have their history documented back to the literal creation of their respective universes. And not just some isolated and disparate creation myths and some random deities but literally the entire mythological framework and basis for how the entire world came into being until the present day. A lot of fantasy authors hint at a deeper mythology while Tolkien actually wrote the entire mythology. That's what the iceberg metaphor is getting at.

[@logancarlile8895]

Lol berserk wasn’t finished either carmine yet you’re putting it on Rushmore

[@GaryCrant]

But the author had the intention of finishing it and wrote until he suddenly died

[@陳奕釩-i4c]

Rick Riordan in the meantime: Straight up copies from the respective mythologies,barrow some of the magical school concept,does some "add on lore",but the whole setting is internally coherent,and the series are amazing. In the meantime,his stories doesn't shy away from changes.Percy's awful step dad his mom put up with to protect him get Medusaed,sold as an art work for high price and grants her the chance of improving their life,after the first series,the root cause of the war are addressed,etc. Also, "copying" IRL history/mythology is great when done right. Turns out Athena's daughter's cousin,his gender fluid love interest whose mother is Loki,and a Muslim Loki's daughter in a happy arrange marriage can go on an awesome adventure that's based on the famous "Thor lost his hammer" story. While,on the flip side,you have Gringotts Wizarding Bank.

[@King_Mac80]

Gringotts Wizarding bank is a great piece of lore building let's not go there.

[@PhilHibbs]

My favourite brutal dark humour is the Victarion passage about the “perfumed boys”. How anyone could write that…

[@jackdoyle7453]

Tolkien just stole from Norse and Irish mythology, with a Muscular Christ, a humble christ and wise christ.

[@patbau96]

A sexy Christ

[@espalier]

The holy trinity writ earthly? MUSCULAR CHRIST!

[@arvaakuka8568]

Don't forget Finnish mythology.

[@joshkellemen5931]

Priest, prophet/ascetic, king. Gandalf, frodo, aragorn. The fellowship leaves rivendell on 12/25 and ring is destroyed 3/25. Christmas and Easter.

[@wisdommanari6701]

I was literally about to say this. The ring of the Nibulung?!? Rings any bells (spelling)

[@alanywalany6460]

Idk Preston, everything I've heard about Tolkien says that he wrote LoTR because people kept asking him for follow up to the Hobbit and that he even was surprised that people cared so much about the universe he'd created over his life.

[@X525Crossfire]

As the lore goes (as I understand it), he first created the languages. Then came the world and its history to provide a context for those languages to exist. Later he wrote The Hobbit on a whim after the first words popped into his head. Finally, as you said, people approached him about a sequel to The Hobbit, and so The Lord of the Rings was born, and while he was writing LotR, he decided it and The Hobbit could fit into the larger mythos he had been working on for decades.

[@7deEspadas]

When even ancient mythology steals from even older mythology, like with the flood, you can't really get mad at seeing similarities in novels.

[@JohnnyJohnnyGalt]

Glad to hear the Robert E. Howard shout out. He had a huge influence on GRRM (and possibly Tolkien*), but often gets kind of forgotten in these discussions. Howard was also spectacularly shameless in his inspirations: Conan's Hyborian Age has a ton of one-to-one cultural and historical inspirations, and Howard was pretty blunt about writing his Conan stories because he wanted to do historical adventures but didn't want to be limited by reality (and research time). *as far as I'm aware, Tolkien never read Howard. He did read his cohorts however, and seems to have enjoyed them. You can see some of the weird fantasy influence in some of Tolkien's earlier notes.

[@coreyander286]

It's difficult for me to get enthusiastic about entering Howard's world when I look at a map and see his scheme for naming places. Prehistoric Egypt was "Stygia"? Scandinavia is just "Nordheim", Britain is just "Pictland"? Zimbabwe is "Zembabwei"? It seems like most things are just slight misspellings of historical terms, even if those historical names came in way too late in history to have plausibly prehistoric origins.

[@X525Crossfire]

​@@coreyander286Well, remember this was almost 100 years ago when bookshelves weren't regularly flooded with fantasy books that had entire conlangs to name places with. Plus, his Conan novels were meant to represent an older version of our world that ostensibly inspired the myths of the civilizations that came after; of course the names would be familiar.

[@nopenope3228]

Hi Preston, just a few corrections here and there: - The meme you're analizing refers to the Silmarillion. - The children's book mentioned is the Hobbit. - Arnor and Gondor appear fairly recent in the history of Middle Earth. - Tolkien did in fact come up with the Ents. The discussion is not about the backstory contained just in The Lord of the Rings but in the whole legendarium, which in fact contains a "myth" of the creation of the universe. You could've just googled that...

[@leedog345]

Im a hardcore simpsons fan, can confirm simpsons renanniance is real, obviously its not going to be as good as golden era but it does it own thing and its enjoyable

[@X525Crossfire]

So more of a Silver Age?

[@YarPirates-vy7iv]

​@@X525Crossfirebronze age

[@ACruelPicture]

I would say both of them borrow as much, but George RR Martin tends to get his influences from pop-culture while Tolkien got his from mythologies that the average person is not overtly familiar with.

[@arvaakuka8568]

I think it's pretty well established, at least in Finland where I'm from, that Tolkien took influence and straight up copied parts of European mythologies for his story-telling and world-building. The story of Turin Turambar is a perfect example of this, where it's basically a complete rip-off of the Finnish story of Kullervo from Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. Tolkien's first ever story was in fact The Story of Kullervo and it's basically a Kalevala fan-fiction. I recommend reading both the original and Tolkien's two versions of it, it's a gripping tale.

[@Canuovea]

Turin's story has plenty related to the Volsung Saga in it too.

[@coreyander286]

In Finland, do they teach the Kalevala as something that Elias Lonnrot mostly came up with on his own, or do they teach it as something that definitely was passed down in pieces back to time imemmorial and Lonnrot just stitched it together? If the latter, do they have good evidence for that? The Sampo seems like a very modern, post-Industrial concept. But then again in medieval Norse myth there was a boat that could fold up and fit in your pocket crafted by the dwarves, so maybe sci-fi-ish/steampunky ideas can be found in genuinely medieval stories.

[@arvaakuka8568]

@@coreyander286 It's the latter. We know that Lönnrot mostly wrote the book based on folk tales he gathered on his trip in Karelia. I suppose the evidence we have for that is that there exist different, local versions of the stories that have the same core but different variations. Lönnrot did come up with some original ideas but I'm not sure which exact ones. Some of the stories are also ancient while others are more recent, so the timeline of the book is all over the place. Sampo isn't really a crazy concept, it's comparable to something like the touch of Midas in my opinion. It produces gold and salt which are both ancient signs of wealth but don't really signify that much in modern era. But I've never heard anyone question the origin of Kalevala so that's an interesting point.

[@superninjaraidingman]

To answer the video title before watching. Both steal and both create but i think tolkien created much more and it is due to their world views. Tolkien has a positive vision of the world. This means he has solutions and not just problems. GRRM has a deconstructive or negative view. He sees problems but has no real solutions. This is partially why he cant finish the series as well. This idea is crude but i think it could be developed further. Bout to enjoy another stream ❤

[@Ashbrash1998]

I wouldn't call it a negative view but maybe more pessimistic. Tolkein's world was good vs evil, while GRRM has a Grey and complicated one. They write two distinct types of fantasy

[@barbaraludwiczak6798]

Well, you might be right. However, GRRM has much more in common with Robert Graves and Maurice Druon. They shared this negative view on humanity, history and yet, they were able to finish what they started. Of course, they wrote historic fiction and the scope of their work was much, much smaller.

[@wisdommanari6701]

How is Grrm view pessimistic. He writes how people motivated by a load of emotional and sociological pressure do good and evil.

[@superninjaraidingman]

@@parse4842 yes i agree. Tolkien believed in good and in evil. And especially for a story he had no problems breaking these down into caricatures. This comes from his strong catholic faith. Im sure he would agree people can be grey or conflicted but would also argue there are fundamentally evil or bad people likewise there are fundamentally good people. Where as GRRM would only see grey. Even in a character like ned his goodness is clouded by the terrible consequences of his "good" actions.

[@superninjaraidingman]

@@wisdommanari6701 I see more reality in GRRMs work and i was not trying to condem GRRM for his "negative" world view. These are perhaps not the best terms. What I am describing though is real in the sense Tolkien had a very clear idea of what it is to be a good person and live a good life where as GRRM simply does not. GRRM might say what is a good life? Depends on the person. Essentially a non-answer or just saying figure it out for yourself.

[@kitkat6959]

I didnt watch the movies, nor know anything beyond some names, and when I read LotR as a 30 year old i saw the brilliance of it

[@budgethornet7498]

George did say the iceberg quote about him and Tolkien. But yeah, I took it as a humble quote.

[@jamesberkheimer]

Man Preston's take on Middle-Earth simply being Europe is so bad it hurts.

[@Idea_of_Lustre]

12:44 The whole Kimba plagiarism controversy was also based on misinformation and got debunked a while ago.

[@EyeOfEld]

Fantasy Mount Rushmore: This is a hard one. But I have to go with Tolkien, Le Guin, Moorcock, and Howard. Martin and Lieber were also contenders, but I think those four have had such a great and lasting influence.

[@TheRealNorth21]

Saying that Tolkien didn’t “steal” is laughably wrong. He took a lot of inspiration from a lot of real world mythology while Martin took a lot from real world history which is also why their stories and philosophies are so different with Tolkien having a more hopeful and simplified world while Martin’s is more pessimistic and complicated. Also I put steal in quotations because honestly I don’t think any of this behavior is stealing because these authors are making brand new stories and experiences based on previous ideas. Tolkien just gets less shit for it because he was the first to do it and is the inspiration of many artists including Martin himself, and it’s hard to criticize someone when so many put him on a pedestal.

[@MrShikamaruTV]

Hm, not including Martin since he didn’t finish ASOIAF but including Oda, while One Piece is not finished….

[@MrSquigglies]

Tolkien created middle earth to be our world he says this several times and letters and notes. It is unambiguously, not a separate place. That's why it is derived from Norse and English mythology. It's not MEANT to be a new thing.

[@feral7523]

I'd love for Preston to get he's teeth into Malazan a fantasy series for Adults that blows your mind with it's scope and imagination it'll make you laugh out loud for sure and sometime weep, with totally new yet familiar ideas with 2 active authors(they D&D gamed it all!) adding to the over 20 books already published by both. For your own sanity read them.

[@GuttedAU]

Malazan embodies almost everything wrong with big door stopper fantasy books, but it also subverts and transcends the tropes in a very different way from ASoIaF. I love it. Edit: on the off chance your reading this, Malazan does explore some heavy issues including but not limited to colonialism, reproductive rights, female genital mutilation, theocracies, the impact of humanity on the environment, capitalism, slavery etc. I am very curious how Preston would feel about critiquing an author who would actually watch and share his videos.

[@feral7523]

@@dookieshoe2905 Ruthan Badd is best out there imo, he has some great insights into the series but there are a lot of the squeamish easily offended type like 10big books etc that made me cringe out of pity for them sometimes.

[@feral7523]

@@GuttedAU For sure 2 writers with their Mojo intact and still being prolific unlike the guy who "pities" he's fans for being mad enough to expect him to finish a 20year old series.

[@jayk8756]

Question. I looked into it a bit, Is there politics and death

[@feral7523]

@@jayk8756 It's all Politics/Military and plenty of Deaths, the Crippled God has many fingers in many Pies and Kruppe likes pie.

[@mistermaestersirthomas9164]

I’m limiting this to medieval fantasy to make a workable four list: GRRM, Wendy Pini, Terry Pratchett, Chris Claremont

[@ModernSynthesist]

Carmine: I'm going to put the creator of one piece on my Rushmore of Fantasy. Preston: OK, I say Lovecraft. Carmine: WOAH WOAH WOAH! That's HARDLY fantasy...

[@OfficialRedTeamReview]

No no, please...finish the quote because i feel like there's more there....possibly an explanation?

[@AbiShoukathAliA]

What? Tolkein took a lot of "inspiration" from Norse, Welsh, and Celtic Mythologies. The same applies to Martin, instead of look at Mythologies alone, he also took inspirations from Historical accounts from Biased sources then used it as a back drop to tell interesting human stories.

[@coreyander286]

Is there a GRRM quote for the "weirwood is a reference to Bob Weir"? Or is Preston pranking us? I figured "weir" is the same as "were" in "werewolf", "man-wolf", "man-tree", and also evoking "weird", in the traditional sense of the weird sisters or the Weirding Way. Dan Simmons actually used "weirwood" in _Hyperion_ in 1989. Simmons's weirwoods are another fictional species of tree grown by the Templars of God's Grove, along with muirwoods named after John Muir, who they see as a prophet. As for elves being tall, they were originally human-sized in Nordic and Celtic folklore, only becoming tiny-sized in the Victorian era, after Shakespeare. Tolkien just moved elves back to the pre-Victorian size they'd always been before. Tolkien wasn't writing _The Hobbit_ with _Lord of the Rings_ in mind. He had been developing Middle-earth and Arda from before _The Hobbit,_ but he didn't develop _The Hobbit_ as a part of Middle-earth, only realizing he could retcon _The Hobbit_ as a setting within Middle-earth while he was brainstorming _Hobbit_ sequel ideas while also wanting to publish his Middle-earth lore in some way.

[@alanpennie8013]

I think there is something distinctive about Tolkien, mainly his invented languages (nowadays he would have a job constructing conlangs) and tge fact that he lived imaginatively in his own "secondary world" for most of his adult life. That said as a writer of fiction he was no better than B+. He's difficult to assess justly, as GRRM is for different reasons.

[@Ieremos]

"no better than B+" Be silent. Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth.

[@AEDVINtus]

I respect the Miura reference, Carmine. I still miss him. @OfficialRedTeamReview

[@alanpennie8013]

I'm reminded of the TS Eliot tag that inferior poets imitate and superior ones steal.

[@dann4044]

The correct Mt. Rushmore of fantasy: Homer, William Shakespeare, Thomas Malory, Dante Alighieri

[@alialmuhanna4938]

2:44 Also, abstract ideas cannot be copyrighted; once can write a story about: a rich kid whose parents are shot dead by a thief, leading said kid to becoming a vigilante of the night; or a high school science nerd getting bitten by a spider; or a medieval world with seemingly post-apocalyptic science-fiction elements; or a little boy who joins a magic school. All of those are valid and perfectly fine starting points for a story, at least legally. On the creative side, I suppose a writer has the restriction of needing his story to be distinct in the particulars, so he needs to get creative with how his story turns out.

[@surfthetsunami5596]

Hey yo, Ursula K Laguin was the first to come up with the magic school thing. What’s her face stole the idea from her.

[@umwha]

Carmine just dosent know stuff … Jk Rowling had alot premade before starting the first book. The backstory with Harry scar, Voldemort and the horcruxes was preplanned as it appears in the first book. She also said she wrote the final chapter very early in in the first book and hid it away in a safe

[@OfficialRedTeamReview]

Carmine was reading from the picture in front of you, if you paid attention you'd know that. Also JK having storybeats down is different from having world lore down which is what the picture is referencing.

[@umwha]

@@OfficialRedTeamReview I was refering to 2:08 where Carmine gives his own comment on JKR, not reading from the pic.

[@OfficialRedTeamReview]

@@umwha I stand corrected because she actually did do this and got flack for it because, way back before the TERF stuff, she was adding on those things I mentioned *after* everything was said and done. it's well documented

[@umwha]

@@OfficialRedTeamReview Yeah i get why people have this impression - because JKR did add ALOT of stuff after the fact. But, although she did publish alot of material much later - she did seem to also pre-plan alot of worldbuilding.

[@auranewaters9574]

Rowling is a liar. She barely had anything planned and its evident when reading the books. Retcon on mass

[@megalexantros]

39:10 I think so too. Even today, I kinda feel like much of the HP fandom is leftovers from the fans that were there WHILE it was being released. I don't see it being a huge thing 20-30 years from now. Especially for teens and young adults.

[@someguyoutthere110]

Self-plagiarism is definitely a thing

[@parastroika2393]

True, but it's more to do with Academia than works of fiction.

[@PhilHibbs]

The Third Age of Middle Earth is kind of like Europe, but that’s only a small portion of Tolkien’s work.

[@nickycha8428]

What do you think about the progression of the Robin Hood movies over time?

[@paulc6060]

My uncle who was born in the late 50s tried convincing me that the Graduate had a happy ending. And I was like, what the fuck are you talking about?

[@coreyander286]

Believe it or not, there are also people who think _The Last Jedi_ was an anti-Luke-Skywalker film about how worthless Luke Skywalker was.

[@ctam79]

Tolkien borrowed heavily from Norse, old Anglo Saxon and Scandinavian myths for LOTR. Nobody is really original.

[@chrissullivan6403]

12:30 Carmine doesn’t know…

[@OfficialRedTeamReview]

I'm not watching YMS's 3 hour video on this. I'll take his word for it

[@GrandArchPriestOfTheAlgorithm]

Both Martin and Tolkien take inspiration from others, you just can't named where Tolkien gets his.

[@Whatwhat86]

I really think the first three dune books are really a finished series on it's own and everything else is just , to use game of thrones, house of the dragon/ dance of dragons context type adding stuff

[@robertkillian2418]

revenge of the sith is second best star wars movie. imo

[@mpalfadel2008]

Tolkien didn’t invent everything in his books from whole cloth However, stole is a really strong word for either Tolkien or Martin

[@TheProphessionalGeek]

“You may have noticed I didn’t put GRR Martin on the Fantasy writers Mount Rushmore. That’s because he didn’t finish.” Neither did fucking Miura!! We will never see the final confrontation of Guts and Griffith.

[@OfficialRedTeamReview]

BUT....if you didn't pause the video and actually continued.....I say how you still get points for being on there because he was actively writing it until he died. I don't get why it's so hard for people to comprehend the simple fact that George is literally going out of his way not to write VS people who wrote until they died lol

[@frankcommatobe8009]

Tolkien write languages for fun when he was in primary school

[@ZoomReverseFlash]

Carmine, people overseas all know about Mount Rushmore. World geography is taught a lot outside of the U.S.

[@OfficialRedTeamReview]

"Carmine, I and people i know know about this because, unlike the U.S we actually know stuff about the U.S." Cool...like I said in the video there are people who don't. Many Europeans, actually.

[@hughmoore2143]

Nostalgia: If you ask anyone, they will tell you that the golden age of SNL was when they were in high school, and it’s been all downhill since then. It doesn’t matter when they went to high school.

[@Healthtymento]

Right because Numenor isn’t just a ctrl-c ctrl-v of Atlantis is it (I haven’t got time to watch, they could very well mention this)

[@matthewlarue1883]

Its not stealing anything, all humans take inspiration and recreate it. The reason why people like it is because it reminds people of our real historys, legends, and mythical beings. This is humanity in itself. Also how do you relate to something if you have no example of something similar.

[@bloodyplebs]

I cannot believe carmine read out that Tolkien line and then said he preferred the movie… oh god.

[@Ionesboule]

It’s basically impossible to create a whole new fantasy world from scratch

[@ricebix]

Even if you think you've got some fresh ideas it's probably already been done before

[@wwcyfd22]

I dont know if its the audio but every time Carmine says Tolkien it sounds like "Tolking"

[@ev1677]

Nobody is saying tolkien created elves etc we are saying that his version of them became the normal depiction of them in the genre going forward

[@3HourSleepHeartAttack]

Whats this guy chatting, beserk is unfinished aswell and it never will be finished

[@OfficialRedTeamReview]

@@dookieshoe2905 Exactly. OP isn't caught up

[@traviscue2099]

Those using the term "steal" clearly don't understand the world of art. You're always inspired/building your own works off of someone elses, no one is truly original.. It's just what you choose to do with it.. Even Tolkien took stories he heard as a child/english history and used that to create his own world. Just look at the world of music, if you've ever written music you've likely heard a piece of music.. then changed it to make it your own.. There are only 12 musical notes, every melody has been written 100s of years ago. Same with stories.

[@diurtydantv8061]

The Kimba Lion King thing been pretty thoroughly debunked.

[@ser_ryon_vine6392]

Yeah, for the most part, I see all of it as being inspired rather than stealing. Stealing would be if something was beat for beat, matching a narrative and saying, you made it yourself, like Carmine said with Lion King. Also I thought one piece was still going?

[@reddest-x]

My mount rushmore of fantasy (in no particular order): JRR Tolkien, GRRM, Ursula K. Le Guin, and a combination of Gygax and Arneson (creators of D&D)

[@ZomgyLand]

It's not that stealing is even bad. GRRM stole from Lovecraft in his worldbuilding and these references are there for a purpose: to contribute to the specific eldritch atmosphere he's trying to create. Same thing with Tolkien, he "stole" from mythology to evoke a specific atmosphere, in his case myhtical or magical. When authors "steal" from the Bible it's considered a literary device, and it's very similar in nature.

[@kunstwert]

Preston, you're dead on about GNR UYI but "Appetite for Destruction" is one of the GOAT.

[@neverpaint691]

This whole discussion on stealing vs. originality is really tired. Everyone is "stealing", there is no original idea. Tolkien's Legendarium is based on Medieval and Victorian literature. His fictional languages are inspired by Welsh and Finnish. The Shire is pre-industrial England. The Rohan chapters take entire scenes from Beowulf. All the dwarf names from The Hobbit are all taken from the Norse mythology. None of this devalues the art in any way, of course.

[@mikehoffler4097]

Imagine 30-50 years in the future, and the indifference and insouciance people will look on 'The Matrix' with. In terms of its cultural impact and the idea that underpins it, its comparisons and status as the direct heir to Plato's Cave, will evolve, but into what? It will most certainly seem quaint and hokey.

[@BanjoSick]

I mean of course Tolkien is the galaxy brain when it comes to fantasy literature. Gene Wolfe is a distant second. That does not mean though, that Martin is not original. His take on epic fantasy was extremely novel when Game of Thrones came out. The real distinction is that Tolkiens creation spans more aspects like language and even more important different modes of fiction i.e. lyrical and epic and within those different genres like novel, verse epic, religious texts and so on. Martin writes mostly novels and novellas, that have a similar scope. His creation feels more flat.

[@korakys]

Tolkien's elves really have little to do with Norse or Celtic elves, in fact he was originally going to call them gnomes. Instead they are a close copy of biblically accurate angels. I'd also like to point out that practically every part of Middle-earth that doesn't appear in one of his stories is completely devoid of features or description. Tolkien made languages, then wrote stories in those languages, then tried to fit them into his world as best he could. A good example is hobbits, they basically came from nowhere in Middle-earth history because they were just a random idea Tolkien had one day after he had already written the creation myth of the world. They're just kind of grafted on, oddly. This is to say, even though I don't think highly of Tolkien's world building he was actually a lot more original in his concepts than other fantasy writers, even the best of them.

[@jswagaudio]

That fast and furious take was absolutely horrendous. The first three movies are by far the best.

[@DukeDukeGo]

1. The Kimba the white lion thing is fake iirc. Like the show existed, but some of the shots "the Lion King copied" were later, bc it was a series or something like that. I saw a video on it, may edit and add 2. Elves, fae, dwarves, kobolds are all the same thing/have the same root. Shape and size shifting, ambiguously intentioned (sometimes benevolent, sometimes malicious) magic beings that just exist in the world

[@manband20]

Haven't watched the video so I can't say I heard the arguments made, but I've always hated the whole argument of "X stole from Y" because at the end of the day, every creative person ever has "stolen" from someone who came before them. Every filmmaking technique was taken from some Russian or French guy who lived a hundred years ago, every trope in every genre had someone do it first, hell pretty much every religion in history has taken something or another from something else. What matters is how you do it. Tolkien is an example of the most extreme form of worldbuilder in media. He used his background in linguistics to carefully craft languages that the fictional characters speak. He wrote their songs. He wrote their poetry. He wrote their creation myth and all the thousands of years of their history leading up to the hole in a ground where some short guy with really hairy feet lives. But he also borrowed heavily from Scandinavian mythology, some themes from Christianity, and touched on his own experiences as a WW1 vet coming home to a land scarred by war and industry that destroyed the world he once called home, a trope that had been done before (cough cough Farewell to Arms cough cough) Does this make him a bad writer? No, of course not. He's arguably one of the most poetic writers in history. And as an influence on the genre, the guy is basically the Velvet Underground of fantasy. Without him, we don't have Dungeons and Dragons, Baldur's Gate, The Elder Scrolls, half of Led Zeppelin's discography, Elijah Wood's entire career, Leonard Nimoy's Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, and so many more facets of pop culture. Without Tolkien, fantasy would never have won Best Picture at the Oscars. THAT says a whole lot about what he's done for the genre. Martin, meanwhile, borrows from history and from fantasy tropes. He created an entire world full of interesting characters and a full backstory for his fiction world. Unlike Tolkien, he has legitimate spinoff material that can and was/is being adapted for TV. He also focuses more on political intrigue and the logistics of war. The biggest knock against Martin his he doesn't go as in-depth as Tolkien did when he was creating his world. He didn't create entire languages or create songs that would top the Westeros Hot 100. A big reason why is the fact that he had bills to pay. Not everyone can be like Tolkien and spend twenty years on their passion project, least of all a full-time writer whose previous novel tanked commercially and just tossed their half-finished manuscript aside to devote his time to this new idea he had about Bran's first POV chapter. And yes, the thing about "questioning Aragorn's tax policy" is stupid and especially ironic when you consider that Westeros has never established a financial system and there's been more discussion of how people rob the Crown blind vs. actually making money, but I digress. Does this make him a bad writer? No, of course not. Martin revitalized fantasy and helped bring a new edge to it. Did he borrow from Tolkien and Moorcock and Scottish history? Sure. Who hasn't at this point? He made fun, interesting characters who don't pull their punches to sell coffee mugs with quotes on them (cough cough fuck you HBO cough cough) and his series has a lot of legitimately strong female POV characters in a genre that's kind of a sausage fest, especially the mainstream stuff. No creative type is immune to this criticism of stealing from other people. Shit, you could even argue that I myself stole from Tom Perrotta's Election for my debut novel (Macbethany: The American Dream) because they both center around a high school student council election and have things like a gay female POV character and a very ambitious female POV character and a football player POV character. But besides that, they are extremely different books. Different themes, different storytelling techniques, etc. What matters isn't how much you borrow (unless you're trying to intentionally plagiarize someone but like don't do that) but what you change from what you borrow. I took the idea of a story about a high school election and changed it into a story about finding yourself, overcoming addiction, I'm gonna write an in-universe musical for it, overcoming trauma at a young age, and a lot of other heavy shit. I think I can safely say that no, George didn't "steal" from Tolkien. He didn't do the old fashioned "just change a couple words so nobody can see the difference and then leave it exactly as it was on the first draft" gimmick. Tolkien inspired him. What's wrong with that?

[@TraciPeteyforlife]

People have been stealing from mythology since the dawn of time. It's what you do with ideas that matters.

[@johnlanouette8611]

Speaking of not putting Tolkien on a pedestal. I had an art teacher in college who didn’t like lord or the rings books or movies, because he said it was a very linear and predictable story. Well at the time I thought he was crazy, until I read a song of ice and fire

[@alanpennie]

It's good YA literature, written long before that was a thing.

[@leahmarie112]

I’m not sure when this was recorded but Preston saying that the Popularity of Harry Potter is going down is laughable. Not only is that series so approachable to children that each new generation is almost guaranteed to read it. But you literally have then new video game that has introduced the world to millions of younger kids, the theme parks that are only expanding AND movie studios lining up to make even more movies in the HP world. Harry Potter is a juggernaut that is not slowing down any time soon. And it certainly has more of a reach than Dune. And I say this as someone who prefers Dune but is just speaking facts.

[@unculturedg4mer310]

its always hilarious to me how carmine comes in with a a very basic understanding of an argument and assumes alot of stuff and then is met with preston's actual knowledge base and is like oh I was woefully underprepared for this