While George R.R. Martin has been quite vocal about his admiration for J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series, with A Song of Ice and Fire, he didn’t exactly set out to imitate the English author’s template. Although both IPs kickstarted two of the most notable fantasy franchises on the big screen and television, considering one is an antithesis of the classical fantasy tropes, the two are incomparable for the most part.
But this isn’t the case with Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, which can be perceived as America’s answer to Tolkien’s tales of Middle Earth, as the parallels between the two are quite noticeable.
Stephen King’s dark fantasy novel has many parallels with LOTR
Opposed to the celebration of English mythology in Tolkien’s LOTR, Stephen King blends several genres, including dark fantasy, sci-fi, and, most notably, Western, one of the most celebrated American myths. This isn’t surprising, as apart from the inspiration from Tolkien’s works and Robert Browning’s Childe Roland to the Dark Tower, Clint Eastwood’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly also served as a key influence.
On top of Roland Deschain’s parallels with Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name, The Dark Tower tells a story similar to LOTR, in which Roland embarks on a grand quest, aided by a fellowship-like group of characters. Even though the two are drastically different in terms of tone and world-building, like Tolkien, the religious undertones of the series stem from the author’s own experience.
Moreover, unlike George R.R. Martin, who is yet to deliver the sixth entry in the series, King concluded the story in 2005, and in 2012, he released The Wind Through the Keyhole, which bridged the gap between books 4 and 5.
George R.R. Martin challenged the Tolkien template with A Song of Ice and Fire
Similar to Stephen King, George R.R. Martin has been a major admirer of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s LOTR. However, instead of following the proven template, which proved to be the bread and butter for a lot of Tolkien imitators, Martin challenged the classical trope by treading into the grotesque and grey nature of medieval war.
He added (via The Guardian):
They cheapened it. The audience were being sold degraded goods. I thought: “This is not how it should be done.” Writers would take the structure of medieval times – castles, princesses, etc – but writing it from a 20th-century point of view. I wanted to combine the wonder and image of Tolkien fantasy with the gloom of historical fiction
Unfortunately, unlike Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire, The Dark Tower has yet to witness a worthy adaptation, unlike the 2017 movie, which completely glosses over the themes of the American epic.
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