On Wednesday’s episode of “The Andrew Klavan Show,” the host answers a question from the mailbag about exploring morality through fiction from J.R.R. Tolkien and George R.R. Martin. Video and partial transcript below.
From Sam, “Dear three-eyed Klavan, you have mentioned before how even though there’s no religion in Tolkien’s Middle Earth books, the fantasy world he created essentially proclaims the existence of an almighty and good creator mirroring his own Catholicism. ‘Game of Thrones,’ on the other hand, seemed to create the illusion of realism by presenting a nihilistic fantasy; a fallen world in which there’s no good or evil but only power. If Westeros does indeed seem to evoke more of a true illusion of reality than Tolkien, then does that suggest our own real world has more in common with Westeros than Middle Earth and its implicit morality? If not, then why is it the nihilistic stories seem more real than those that more clearly reveal the truth a moral world?”
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