George R.R. Martin asks: “What was Aragorn’s tax policy?”

Game of Thrones author, George R.R. Martin, in a long interview with Rolling Stone magazine has spoken about his views of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s The Lord of the Rings.



Martin, who is a fan of Tolkien’s works, has often criticised The Lord of the Rings for the over-simplification of the themes that it deals with. In his latest interview, he has challenged Tolkien’s portrayal of power:

Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?

Martin also spoke about Tolkien’s treatment of war:

The war that Tolkien wrote about was a war for the fate of civilization and the future of humanity, and that’s become the template. I’m not sure that it’s a good template, though. The Tolkien model led generations of fantasy writers to produce these endless series of dark lords and their evil minions who are all very ugly and wear black clothes. But the vast majority of wars throughout history are not like that.

You can read the full interview on the Rolling Stone website.