George R R Martin VS J K Rowling: Jo's Reply

I've been a Fan of Jo since 2002. Yes its over 10 years and going by my posts most of you would have guessed so.

I've recently taken an interest in George R R Martin. The popularity of HBO's Game of Thrones has exposed to Martin's world and while I'm yet to read any of his books ... I'v read excepts from them. His brand of fantasy is quite different: there is no traditional good vs evil.

In fact it seems there is no good at all only evil: shades of evil. Its more Real World fantasy. No Order of Phoenix v/s Death Eaters conflicts here. Even in the White walkers v/s Lord of Light scenario, we can't really pick sides. We really don't know if the white walker are evil, now do we?
As for the lord of the light, this god is into vengeance and stuff, (I was) never a fan of fanatics ...


Anyway we are not here to discuss Game of Thrones/ A song of Ice and Fire, if R+L really = J , or will Rickon's storyline is a shaggydog tale. Maybe later

This post is about Jo vs GRRM.

How it started

"Eat your heart out, Rowling. Maybe you have billions of dollars and my Hugo, but you don't have readers like these."

The Hugo Awards where the two authors clashed was in 2001, when The Goblet of Fire won over A Storm of Swords.

Separate from his comments about the Hugo award, Martin has indicated that he is not particularly fond of "Harry Potter." In 2008, he rejoiced that President Obama collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics. "That's so cool that I'm willing to forgive him for being a Harry Potter fan,"


This was of course before 2011, when Game of Thrones released.


His grudge may have led him to poke fun at "Harry Potter" within the pages of the next book in his series, "A Feast for Crows," In a passage of that book, Martin described a fight between the female knight Brienne of Tarth and two male knights.


"She had ridden over Harry Sawyer and broken Robin Potter's helm, giving him a nasty scar," Martin wrote.

And that my friends, is  how Harry Potter got their scar.


George R.R. Martin's 2001 Loss To J.K. Rowling Is Still A Sore Subject

(A Business insider report)


If you google J K Rowling V/s George R R Martin you'll find this all over the place. What you might not get is Jo's reply. J K Rowing is of course known for her sublimity so its no surprise.

Jo's Reply

Do you remember my last post "Why I don't like silkworm" because this has got to do with it. I found that book too dark and it reminded me of Game of Thrones for some reason. Why exactly I could never tell until recently while looking at GRRM's pic I though he looks a lot like Owen Quine.

"Owen Quine was a large, pale and portly man of around sixty, with straggly yellow-white hair and a pointed Van Dyke beard. His eyes appeared to be of different colours, which gave a particular intensity to his stare. For the photograph he had wrapped himself in what appeared to be a Tyrolean cape and was wearing a feather-trimmed trilby."

I suppose had she said sailor's cap it would be too obvious. Hahaha

This is what the Novel describes Quine

Quine, once hailed as one of the original literary rebels—presented as the literary world's version of music's punk rock scene—has struggled for years to recreate the success of his original novel and has fallen out of public view. Strike discovers that his disappearance coincides with the leak of the manuscript for his latest novel, Bombyx Mori. The London literary community considers Bombyx Mori to be unpublishable; an unpleasant mix of rape, sadomasochism, torture, necrophilia and cannibalism, with its hero eaten alive by characters who are thinly-veiled metaphors for people in Quine's life whom he considers responsible for the destruction of his career.

Sounds familiar.


It was Quin's Novel Bombyx Mori that reminded me of Game of Thrones. All that rape and that gruesome murder is so GRRM.


Well what can I say i'm rather proud of Jo and rethinking my opinion on Silkworm

Cuckoo's Calling

Cuckoo's Calling has no magic and its a very Adult book but it does seem to remind me of Philosopher's stone and Chamber of Secrets.. CoS more than PS. To begin with they are both essentially whodunits. Strike is trying to find the murderer, just like Harry & friends are trying to find thee heir of slytherin. And that's not all:

Compairing the suspects

1) the obvious ones
Who did we suspect right from the start when the chamber opened … yes Draco Malfoy.
Evan Duffield can be compared to him easily.. Both shallow, vain and spoiled rotten. And they are major attention seekers, in reality wimps rather than villains.
Freddie Bestigui is another one. It is implied he is a rapist, abuser and a villian in general. Like Draco he is rich, inherited his money from daddy. But like Draco he is eventually acquitted.

2) Tony Landry and Percy …
Percy acted very ooc during the second book. He shut himself in his room all summer. In the school he looks shifty and guilty. He is seen near the slytherin common room (when Harry and Ron are going to interrogate Draco disguised as Crabbe and Goyle) Then he all but shoves Ginny when she is trying to tell Harry something important.
We don't suspect him still .. Coz he is Ron's brother (can't be heir of slytherin can he?)
Tony Landry is different. He is said to be a racist, hated lula before she started making money. He wasn't in Oxford attending conference when he said that's where he was… he wasn't in the hotel either. In short he had means, motive , and opportunity to kill her & many people till the very end thought it was him.
How is like Percy, you ask. Simple he wasn't the murderer he only appeared guilty because he was sleeping with Ursala May, wife of his partner Cyprain May just like Percy who was getting worked up because of Penelope Clearwater, his girlfriend who he was snogging when spotted by Ginny.
Note: Both Percy and Tony fought with their family and Tony was thrown out for telling the truth while Percy left on his own believing lies.

3) John Britrow, Ginny and Tom Riddle.
We never suspected Riddle, who would suspect a 50 year old memory of a Halfblood boy who seemed so much like our beloved Harry. Similarly we still have difficulty understanding why John will hire a detective when he himself was the killer.
The clues are barely there and will be visible only when you re read the book. Like for instance the photos deleted from Lula's laptop, the Guy Somé's hoodie, Rochelle, his reaction to the newspaper report of a black man killed in action in Afghanistan etc. … the are minuscule just like the once framing Ginny. Hagrid tells Ron he saw Ginny arround the same time his cocks started dying & Ginny's look of horror when she sees the diary with Harry. His eyes as green as fresh picked toads played conveniently then and it made us think that was Ginny's reaction to the Valentine. Maybe she sent it idk Jo never clarified who did … maybe it was Draco who did … to embarrass Harry.

It also invokes philosopher's stone:
The book introduces us to Robin and Cormoron Strike and they are well very written unlike what we usually see in this genre.
Then there are suble stuff that other's noticed and are worth mentioning. Check them out in the link bellow

Harry Potter clues in Cuckoo's Calling