On a deployment I picked up a free paperback “Game of Thrones”. It sat in my nightstand for years. A few months ago, I started the first book, and was enthralled enough by the storyline and characters that I blew through all five of George R.R. Martin’s completed books in the “Songs of Fire and Ice” series. I’ll give a review of Martin’s work at the end of this post, because want I really want to highlight is the obvious difference of worldview of the author when compared to another popular fantasy author, J.R.R. Tolkien.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are clearly written with a Christian worldview - there are virtuous people, clear good guys and bad guys and guys in between, people willing to sacrifice for the good of their community, and magic that can be used for good or ill. The overarching ideas of honor, courage, and the chivalric notion of protecting vulnerable people run throughout the stories that take place in Middle-Earth.

The elves are a noble people with noble leaders. The men and dwarves are flawed people, with flawed leaders. The orcs and goblins are wicked people with wicked leaders. It’s obvious who to root for, and the leading characters go through struggles in their development as they wrestle with the choices set before them - often choices between an option that is safer or profitable for the individual vs an option that is dangerous or will cost the individual but is better for the community.

In contrast, Songs of Fire and Ice is written from a nihilistic worldview. I don’t just mean the overt sexual immorality of all kinds (often described in lurid detail). In the world of Westeros and Essos, there are no considerations apart from power and possibly family benefit. Individuals and Houses stab each other in the back at the drop of a hat. Murder is always an option (and liberally used), and it is difficult to imagine that anyone in that world truly trusts anyone else. There seem to be no good guys, no noble peoples, no virtuous leaders. While some characters may be somewhat more honorable than others, they often resort to self-serving tactics, murder, and betrayal to accomplish their ends. Not a single character can be good in the same sense that most of the Fellowship of the Ring, or even Boromir and Theoden. The closest we come to a character with well, “good character” are the child Bran and the trans-ish Brienne of Tarth.

The treatment of the sexes reflects this worldview difference. While Tolkien has been criticized in the woke era of allowing too little female involvement, his female characters are noble, wise, and courageous. Since the vast majority of his characters are male, they fit the descriptions of the peoples above, varied in virtue. Martin’s women, however are all either rape victims or future rape victims, baby factories, or the most conniving, plotting puppet masters in the books, rivaled in their treacheries and deceptions only by a few gay men. The men are all sexual predators, generally only inhibited by the superior power of another man or a desire to acquire some other kind of power. The strong do what they want, and the weak suffer what they must. Child murder and rape is a common occurrence, common enough that those who do it are only censured by those closest to the victims…if at all. It is a bleak picture of humanity.

Without knowing anything about him, I have to imagine that George R.R. Martin is a childless atheist. The image of women (and men) he presents makes it hard to believe that he has ever had a healthy marriage. He created a world full of completely untrustworthy people, which makes me unsurprised that he never finished the series (as he promised his fans). The role of the supernatural is only dark and evil, and generally untrustworthy itself - the Seven gods of Westeros are either mere myths or powerless to intervene in any way. Dark magic gives hints, like the palm readers of our day, but aside from being a tool for murder, or feeding itself to reproduce zombies, isn’t particularly helpful for anyone.

In contrast, Tolkien’s Middle Earth, despite not having any kind of analogy to God or the Trinity, is infused with a Judeo-Christian understanding of what is good, true, and beautiful. You can root for characters without feeling guilty or confused, and their struggles with sin are understandable to us rooted in a Judeo-Christian informed culture and worldview. And, what is also unsurprising, Tolkien knows how to finish a story. An atheist has no reason to expect a consummation, real good and evil, or redemption. There is only an unending string of power struggles and betrayals, and no way to bring it to an end.

A man’s worldview affects everything - even his ability to tell a story worth repeating. I suspect that in 100 years Tolkien’s works will still be read, while Martin’s unfinished (and indeed, unfinishable) series will be forgotten.