Now that were primary inspirations for him to write the A Song of Ice and Fire series.
When it comes to their live-action counterparts, there are some significant differences between them, most notably that the Lord of the Rings and subsequent The Hobbit trilogies were adapted as movies while Game of Thrones became a TV show. Still, the respective re-imaginings stayed close to their source materials, and allowed for the comparisons to remain in live-action. The similarities don't just lie with their fantasy settings and rich mythology though, and resulted in Game of Thrones coming close to copying Lord of the Rings on a few occasions.
In the latest Screen Rant video, we examine ten instances when the parallels between Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings are just too obvious not to notice. Some of these comparisons go back to the source material but stayed intact for their respective TV and movie adaptations, but other parts of Game of Thrones look to be direct homages to Lord of the Rings. Check out the full list of examples in the video featured at the top of this post.
Jon Snow has drawn comparisons to Aragorn in the past thanks to their similar stories and Frodo since they both received wounds that would never heal. The similarities with Jon and Frodo extend beyond this though and to their best friends, who are both named Sam. There are even parallels between Jon's farewell with his Stark "siblings" and Frodo's goodbye with Sam, Pippin, and Merry, or how both stories ended with the books for which they are based on being written in-universe. Many fans have even pointed out the similarities between the Iron Throne and the One Ring, as they both corrupt people for power and were destroyed through fire.
If there's any other way that Game of Thrones is similar to Lord of the Rings, it would be as a mostly-praised fantasy epic that became one of the most popular franchises during their times. The original Lord of the Rings trilogy is heralded as one of the best ever, just as how the early seasons of Game of Thrones are praised as top-notch television. Both series may have stumbled a bit since then, but their popularity and overall quality is unquestionable. In that case, it isn't bad for Game of Thrones to copy what Lords of the Rings did, especially since Amazon is now hoping to borrow from the hit HBO series in making their Middle Earth-based series.