Tolkien: and then the Good King came and cast out the Evil Stewards who were corrupt because they ruled without the correct bloodline. Everything was peaceful after that and there was no more evil. There are two women in this story. Monarchy is good. The actual singular God who created everything wants you to be ruled by a 300 year old nobleman. The End.
GRRM: Feudalism is inherently destructive. Even the Noble Good Guys cause unimaginable suffering due to the structures of the system they operate within. Women are no more than brood mares under Feudalism. There is a Good King whose father was deposed. This Good King has spent his life living amongst the common people in order to become a good ruler. He is being manipulated by cynical actors and will bring devastation to the world when he begins his conquest. Thirty years ago the Hero of Prophecy acted to save the world from the Great Evil. He unleashed devastation on the land, died, and destroyed his own dynasty, possibly dooming the world. There are no gods, only powerful forces beyond our understanding that operate through the power of blood. Once upon a time there was a Good King who ruled justly. He brought peace to the land and improved the common folks' lot tremendously. Due the nature of Feudalism, the succession crisis that succeeded his reign led to the most bloodshed in 300 years. No one who wants war understands its cost.
People who dislike things because they're popular: Wow these are exactly the same!
One of the most valid musings the ASOIF novels have, which the TV show only barely skims over when absolutely necessary, is its running central theme of power. What is power? What defines it? What does it mean to have it, to use it, who has it, what differentiates someone who has power and one who does not? Why does one become king? What makes a king so special, anyway? What are institutions, and how do they contrast with sheer, raw ability to wield force in the face of them? What good are abstractions like duty, honor, honesty etc in the face of power?
These questions are answered, demonstrated, or mused upon by the various cast members (again, novels only) throughout the various events of the narrative and it becomes a more enriched story, rather than just a story of a civil war and succession crisis with a looming supernatural threat and also detailed descriptions of nobles and houses and sexual abuse and misogyny in the background, or not, as the case may be. GRRM is a pessimist, and concludes that power is inherently bad, and that even good intentions may have wider-reaching negative consequences in the long term. To a well-read leftist, this may seem abhorrent, but it is still a valid series of statements, conclusions aside. I don't think GRRM will "redeem himself" with an out-of-left-field hidden leftist message when (if) Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring come out - he's said his piece by now. There will be few happy endings, and that's fine. It's also, crucially, fiction. ASOIF is no more a valid condemnation or support of feudalism, or of the futility of breaking existing power structures than Animal Farm is a valid critique of communism.
As forTolkien, I feel he has a lot less to say, and less to muse upon, about more abstract philosophical concepts, rather than telling a pretty straightforward story about defeating evil and doing some casual genocide of lesser races.
I'm a massive fan of Dune (the original author's works anyway), and while I wouldn't call it a leftist work, it explored similar ideas of power with an emphasis on the dangers of messianic figures and their consequences, and I enjoyed it greatly in my formative years for what it was.
Dune had sexual violence as a plot point (most notably Baron Harkonnen and his encounters with the Bene Gessarit), but unlike GRRM, the narrative focus didn't keep going back to that again and again and again and again under pretenses of illustration and realism. The point was made, and then the story moved on.
A story doesn't have to be fundamentally leftist for me to enjoy it, but at least Dune had the courage to show actual radical and even destructive long-lasting societal change instead of framing revolution as naive, hypocritical, and silly. There's only so many times that GRRM's novelties in 1995 can or should be excused until they just seem repetitive except to himself and to his already locked-in fandom that wants more of the same.
Dune may not be leftist but the campbellians still have ambitions toward scientific history so Herbert made a lot of effort in that front.
There is even a revew of dune in lecture format by Peter Turchin. If you whant to know what someone who studies historical dynamics thinks of it.
Oh I know it. I didn't say that Dune had nothing to say, far from it, but that I was making no flattering pretensions that every comrade had to read Dune as a supplement to theory.
Yhea. Campbellians are definetly not leftist.
I do find more in comon with them than with libs. For some reason.
Herbert also became single-mindedly fascinated with "barrier" ecosystems, specifically how a specific plant at the edges of deserts seemed to deter the desert's ongoing encroachment. That singular importance of that plant species lead to the idea of the spice melange.
Interesting i was not aware. So the spice is the equivalent of that but for space travel. That is an interesting ecological concept. I wonder wat conditions lead to such an arrangment. Would mangroves be a similar type of plant?
It's been a while, so I don't remember which specific plant caught his attention, but whatever it was, that was the basis of the space melange as a central and pivotal and necessary element that everything else depended upon.
I agree with most of this, but I don't think that it being a critique of power precludes it being a critique of Feudalism as well. It definitely smooths over plenty of the details (and is plainly undialetical in the way it depicts all of these kingdoms as coherent bodies changing relatively little over time) but I think the kernel is close enough for it to work.
I would personally make the case that if you want to critique a real-world subject like feudalism, liberalism, fascism, communism etc, then it should be grounded in real-world historical examples of its effects and why you're making a case for or against it. An allegorical work, or even a more grounded one set in a world that is total fiction and has no basis for having a feudalistic system other than the author's fancy is not as valid as one explaining why feudalism worked in the early to late middle ages, why it eroded away or was overthrown and what historical influences led to its demise, to be replaced by liberalism. Fiction tends to leave too many things open to interpretation, so if it's not clearly in favour of one real-world ideological basis in favor of another, you get brain-dead takes like "uhhh yeah Hunger Games is actually about fighting communism" or Squid Game, or anything else. In other words, you could make a work of historical fiction, be as accurate as you like with the details, condemn feudalism in the text as subtly or overtly as one wishes, and champion the cause of liberalism in a setting where it makes historical and dialectical sense to do so.
Maybe I'm too literal, but I simply assume all fiction is inherently reactionary or not well-thought through enough to tell the difference. Helps me sift out the bullshit by just keeping the guard up.
Well on that note I don't think I've ever read a work of fiction that's actually dialectical, let alone one that models itself after something historical.
Maybe The Expanse is the closest?