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Dear friends,

I need your help making positive pepe the frog memes to battle against evil trolls:

Please make a kid-friendly pepe in your style and send it to me at:

hashtagsavepepe@gmail.com

I’m creating a positive pepe artist database, so include your name.

also, please share nice pepe’s with the hashtag:

#savepepe

thanks! -matt

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I'll admit, I don't read the comics and I doubt I will anytime soon, but I don't understand why you think being brainwashed is the same as choosing to be a Nazi by your own choice?

First of all, Hydra and Nazis are not synonymous. Even in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they’re an offshoot of the NDSAP, not the NDSAP proper. Second, and I can’t possibly stress this enough, there is absolutely no possibility, none, zero, no possibility whatsoever that Steve Rogers is really, truly, actually, sincerely, legitimately an agent of Hydra, of his own volition, by his own choice. None. Zero. Less than zero. No more so than Superman is still dead, than Batman still has a broke back, than Peter Parker is still Ben Reilly. I honestly can’t believe I need to point this out. But given that my interlocutor hasn’t even read the comic he’s upset about, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised at all.

In the main I find it grotesque that a generation of readers who could not care less that Jack Kirby was fucked out of his money and credit and rights by the corporation that owns his creations is now all of a sudden putting words into his mouth when he cowrote and drew a storyline virtually identical to the one in question. The fucking guy saved comics as an art form in North America, and also literally liberated a concentration camp as a fucking soldier in the fucking Second World War. He deserves respect, real respect, not instrumentation as a cudgel to be wielded against those who are playing with your precious toys in a way you don’t like.

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Yes you're right that Jorah really does not have an arc in ADWD, and I think that GRRM mainly uses him to present one more way to react to enslavement. BUT I really do think that there's really still some kind on moment for him to come. I think we've just spent way too much time with him for something like that not to happen (at least I hope so). And while he really isn't a very nice guy overall, he really isn't one of the straight up monsters of the books (eg. Gregor, Vic, Ramsay and actually Tywin and Roose too).

Ok so this will be ranty because this is something that truly baffles me: 

Every time I talk about how I find Jorah Mormont a shallow, poorly written, deeply boring character, a font of unpleasantness with no upshot, for me a source of naught but nausea and a desire to do anything but read on, several people tell me that Jorah goes through a period of self-reflection when he’s enslaved in ADWD, that he perceives the irony of being an enslaved slaver, that he increasingly gets what he’s done wrong in life but is repressing and compartmentalizing it. 

And this is just nowhere in the text. It’s pure headcanon, and of course there’s nothing wrong with that, but projecting it onto the page gives Jorah an arc that GRRM doesn’t bother to. Here is every appearance Jorah makes in ADWD after being enslaved: 

Two slavers dragged Jorah Mormont onto the block to take her place. The knight was naked but for a breechclout, his back raw from the whip, his face so swollen as to be almost unrecognizable. Chains bound his wrists and ankles. A little taste of the meal he cooked for me, Tyrion thought, yet he found that he could take no pleasure from the big knight’s miseries.

Even in chains, Mormont looked dangerous, a hulking brute with big, thick arms and slopedshoulders. All that coarse dark hair on his chest made him look more beast than man. Both his eyes were blackened, two dark pits in that grotesquely swollen face. Upon one cheek he bore a brand: a demon’s mask.

When the slavers had swarmed aboard the Selaesori Qhoran, Ser Jorah had met them with longsword in hand, slaying three before they overwhelmed him. Their shipmates would gladly have killed him, but the captain forbade it; a fighter was always worth good silver. So Mormont had been chained to an oar, beaten within an inch of his life, starved, and branded.

“Big and strong, this one,” the auctioneer declared. “Plenty of piss in him. He’ll give a good show in the fighting pits. Who will start me out at three hundred?”

No one would.

Mormont paid no mind to the mongrel crowd; his eyes were fixed beyond the siege lines, on the distant city with its ancient walls of many-colored brick.

Nurse returned with Jorah Mormont. Two of their master’s slave soldiers flung him into the back of the mule cart between the dwarfs. The knight did not struggle. All the fight went out of him when he heard that his queen had wed, Tyrion realized. One whispered word had done what fists and whips and clubs could not; it had broken him. I should have let the crone have him. He’s going to be as useful as nipples on a breastplate.

Ser Jorah Mormont looked at no one and nothing. He sat huddled, brooding in his chains. Tyrion looked at everything and everyone.

Jorah Mormont raised his head and stared at Nurse. Tyrion could see the tightness in his arms. He’s going to throttle him, and that will be the end for all of us. But the knight only grimaced, then turned to watch the bloody show.

Jorah Mormont accepted his collar in a sullen silence, but Penny began to cry as the armorer was fastening her own into place.

The knight had not adapted well to bondage. When called upon to play the bear and carry off the maiden fair, he had been sullen and uncooperative, shuffling lifelessly through his paces when he deigned to take part in their mummery at all. Though he had not attempted escape, nor offered violence to his captors, he would ignore their commands oft as not or reply with muttered curses. 

None of this had amused Nurse, who made his displeasure clear by confining Mormont in an iron cage and having him beaten every evening as the sun sank into Slaver’s Bay. The knight absorbed the beatings silently; the only sounds were the muttered curses of the slaves who beat him and the dull thuds of their clubs pounding against Ser Jorah’s bruised and battered flesh.

The man is a shell, Tyrion thought, the first time he saw the big knight beaten. I should have held my tongue and let Zahrina have him. It might have been a kinder fate than this.

Mormont emerged from the cramped confines of the cage bent and squinting, with both eyes blackened and his back crusty with dried blood. His face was so bruised and swollen that he hardly looked human. He was naked except for a breechclout, a filthy bit of yellow rag. “You’re to help them carry water,” Morgo told him.

Ser Jorah’s only reply was a sullen stare. Some men would sooner die free than live a slave, I suppose. 

He turned to Ser Jorah. “A few more beatings and you’ll be uglier than I am, Mormont. Tell me, is there any fight left in you?”

The big knight raised two blackened eyes and looked at him as he might look at a bug. “Enough to crack your neck, Imp.”

The bravo curled a lip, whilst the fellow with the quill chuckled at his insolence. But it was Jorah Mormont who supplied their names. “Inkpots is the company paymaster. The peacock calls himself Kasporio the Cunning, though Kasporio the Cunt would be more apt. A nasty piece of work.”

Mormont’s face might have been unrecognizable in its battered state, but his voice was unchanged. Kasporio gave him a startled look, whilst the wrinkles around Plumm’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “Jorah Mormont? Is that you? Less proud than when you scampered off, though. Must we still call you ser?”

Ser Jorah’s swollen lips twisted into a grotesque grin. “Give me a sword and you can call me what you like, Ben.”

Kasporio edged backward. “You … she sent you away …”

“I came back. Call me a fool.”

A big knight stepped down from the back of a wagon, clad head to heel in company steel. His left greave did not match his right, his gorget was spotted with rust, his vambraces rich and ornate, inlaid with niello flowers. On his right hand was a gauntlet of lobstered steel, on his left a fingerless mitt of rusted mail. The nipples on his muscled breastplate had a pair of iron rings through them. His greathelm sported a ram’s horns, one of which was broken.

When he took it off, he revealed the battered face of Jorah Mormont.

He looks every inch a sellsword, and not at all like the half-broken thing we took from Yezzan’s cage, Tyrion reflected. His bruises had mostly faded by now, and the swelling in his face had largely subsided, so Mormont looked almost human once again … though only vaguely like himself. The demon’s mask the slavers had burned into his right cheek to mark him for a dangerous and disobedient slave would never leave him. Ser Jorah had never been what one might call a comely man. The brand had transformed his face into something frightening.

“Or dead dwarfs,” said Jorah Mormont. “We are all like to be feeding worms by the time this battle is done. The Yunkai’i have lost this war, though it may take them some time to know it. Meereen has an army of Unsullied infantry, the finest in the world. And Meereen has dragons. Three of them, once the queen returns. She will. She must. Our side consists of two score Yunkish lordlings, each with his own half-trained monkey men. Slaves on stilts, slaves in chains … they may have troops of blind men and palsied children too, I would not put it past them.”

So where’s this arc I keep hearing about? What, that his bruises faded? That he wants a sword? Where in all that is any hint that Jorah is self-reflecting, that he sees the irony, that he understands even at a subconscious level what a selfish brute he’s been? All Jorah does is sit, stare, absorb blows, and threaten to snap Tyrion’s neck (see why I call him boring?) That he’s thinking any of those things is, again, pure projection, and given what a thoroughly non-reflective person he was in the previous books, it’s a projection that makes zero sense to me. Tyrion has the arc in the quotes above, in terms of how he feels about Jorah. The bear himself stays the same “my pain is all that matters” asshole who doesn’t actually give a damn what Dany herself wants or thinks or needs. Sure, he’s a non-POV, but so are Stannis and Sandor, and GRRM has them explicitly, compellingly wrestle with their demons, fleshing out their characters, rendering them multi-dimensional human beings. 

Now though, as I’ve said, I’m not arguing that every character has to have an arc, but if you’re not going to give a character an arc, you need to give me another reason to keep reading (such as say, the pitch-black comedy of Victarion’s story), and to these eyes, Jorah’s got nothing. To each their own, of course, but I do think it’s telling that the most common defense of the character I hear isn’t actually rooted in the text. 

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Yeah. But although a lot of what you say rings true, I still have this feeling that he still has some kind of role to play in things to come. Maybe something minor, but I don't think he has survived all that downbeating and humiliation for no reason (kinda like Theon).

Though Jorah is a non-repentetive slaver, he is also other things. And even though I don't particurarily like him that much, I don't think he is meant to be read like Victarion who is JUST a stupid, murderous brute. I mean he's (like most charecters in the books) decent in some ways, asshole in many. Grey. And in the state that he's in the books now, kinda pitiful and miserable.

Roose is patient with and even kind to Theon at Barrowton, does that make him not evil? You don’t have to do awful things every second of every day to qualify as a bad person. You just have to cross the moral event horizon regularly and unabashedly, which Jorah does. Remember, those “other things” include creeper, abuser, and traitor. What a charmer. 

So what if he’s pitiful and miserable? So is Victarion! They’re unhappy as a result of their own actions, and their utter refusal to self-examine and improve as people. Instead, they blame others for their behavior, and I find that almost as repellent as the actions themselves. And like Roose, it’s not like Victarion is 100% evil to everybody all the time; I find it kind of adorable how concerned he is that Moqorro feels respected and validated while on the Iron Victory. But Vic commits evil acts so unabashedly that I have no problem calling him a bad person, and same goes for Jorah. 

The comparison to Vic, however, wasn’t meant to say GRRM set out to write them the same. I was saying that you can write an unabashedly horrible person well if you play up the bitter satire as he does with Victarion, but not if you play them straight and act like they’re sympathetic, as he did with Jorah. As I’ve said, the latter’s weak tea compared to the genuine, agonizing tragedy of someone like Sandor. Jorah’s just every bitter asshole whining about the “friendzone,” nothing more. I think he’s a very poorly written character. 

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If you don't mind me asking, what are your hopes for Captain America: Civil War? While I loved what the Russo Brothers did with The Winter Soldier arc, I am a little worried that this Civil War will be a psychological thriller rather than a film based on politics (The comic version of Civil War, at it's best, about the Patriot Act IMHO)

Oh man, don’t get me started on the Civil War comics. Total trainwreck, and a huge part of it is that the writers couldn’t decide whether the Registration Act was gun control, the Patriot Act, or the total abrogation of the 13th Amendment. (And remember, if Civil War was supposed to be about the Patriot Act, Millar thought that pro-Patriot Act was the right side…)

Here’s what I want from the Civil War movie: make the conflict make sense for both Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. Let them both have important points to make that are grounded in their characters, rather than turn Iron Man into a fascist because you need that to make the fight happen. 

Yes, it’s going to turn out that Baron Zemo and HYDRA are manipulating General Thunderbolt Ross. But let’s have that exacerbating tensions between positions that both men hold already. 

We’ve already seen the foundations of this - Iron Man 3 and Age of Ultron show that Tony Stark (partially due to his PTSD) can’t stop himself from trying to build the whole world an Iron Man suit (or build a giant fleet of drones to be everyone’s personal Iron Man) despite the awful consequences of that, and if someone hurt one of the people he cares about (even in self-defense) that would kick it into overdrive. (Also, Tony tends to over-correct when he fucks up - hence blowing up the Iron Man suits, hence building Ultron, hence embracing Sekovia Accords after Ultron goes rogue)

And we already know that Cap will react to that kind of security state the same way he did to Project Insight - fear vs. freedom, the individual’s right to due process etc.. He’s not going to stand for Ross and Stark building a black site prison in the middle of the ocean, or preventative detention for people supposedly too dangerous to put on trial. This is especially the case when it comes to Bucky, someone whose possibility of redemption he has already shown himself willing to risk his life for. 

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Oh not you too! The Marvel brand isnt doing cinema any favors. These trite morality plays arent helping superhero movies either. Arent you exhausted by Marvel's aesthetic? I hear the defense that it's a genre, but the problem is that it's a brand. These are shot like car commercials, no real direction. You want actual cinematic superhero films? Try Shyamalan's Unbreakable; PWSA's Res Evil 4&5. Cinema isn't supposed to be a poly-sci essay or a polemic, told in clunky close-ups, bland action, etc

**poli-sci… and you know what’s infinitely better than any Marvel movie? Jupiter fucking Ascending. Hell, any Wachowski film. Or Edgar Wright’s. Sorry for rant but you were praising CA like it’s a goddamn Edward Yang movie. It’s all shouted worldviews, heinous action coverage, grimdark fetishism, horrible use of lighting, no sense of even competent cross-cutting. Meta diologue analysis of American exceptionalism? No thanks.

I think you and I have fundamentally different aesthetics, Anon. 

1. Marvel’s films can be incredibly stylistically different from one another - Joe Johnston, Joss Whedon, Kenneth Branaugh, James Gunn, the Russo brothers, are quite distinctive in their styles and interests, and indeed have produced movies that belong to different genres that all happen to be superhero movies. 

2. Captain America: First Avengers is not grimdark fetishism. (If it’s grimdark fetishism you’re looking for, Batman v. Superman is over yonder) It’s 40s camp, and it’s absolutely expressive of Joe Johnston’s aesthetic. Seriously, go watch Rocketeer and then watch Captain America and tell me that you can’t see the visual and thematic similarities. And yeah, I like some ideas in my super hero movies; better that than Zack Snyder. 

3. I don’t find your alternatives appealing in the slightest. Unbreakable is over-praised and incredibly self-serious from one of the biggest flash in the pans in cinema history. PWSA’s movies are video game movies rather than super-hero movies and they’re frankly unwatchable. Jupiter Ascending is ridiculously overstuffed, badly acted, poorly plotted, and strangely pro-bestiality, and if you don’t like cinema as polemic, how can you enjoy Matrix Reloaded or Matrix Revolutions? 

But at the end of the day, this is just my opinion about my aesthetic preferences. You don’t have to like what I like or vice versa. 

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After just watching the really great fight scene in the third episode of the Daredevil's second season, it got me thinking: how plausible is it that Daredevil didn't actually kill anyone in that scene (or before in the series)? It's amazing how rough violence you can witness on screen/tv and still believe that you can't kill someone by just hitting them, if you don't mean to.

A core suspension of disbelief inherent in superhero fiction, right alongside being able to reach escape velocity in ships the size of cars, or Batman getting knocked out literally thousands of times without winding up like an NFL player.

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While not disagreeing with you at all, I actually just today read an analysis from a local (Finland) newspaper that the GOP itself opened the gates a while ago with their flirting with racism and right-wing looneys (or as you said, "racist dog whistling") and someone like him would have crawled out of it eventually.

Or do you think that it could have been only Trump, with his own money and fame, that could do it without the party-support? And that actually poses the question: has he already changed the grand old party enough for the true crazies to prosper (or take over) without him?

Which one do you think would be a more disastrous president for the United States: Trump or Cruz? Or is the question potatoes, potatos?

Trump. Recognizing that on several policy issues Cruz, as well as Rubio and Kasich and the other opponents, are worse than Trump, Trump’s major destructive contribution to the race isn’t policy-based, it’s in trading the Republican Party’s usual racist dogwhistle in for a megaphone. That will have, and is currently having, a transformative impact on the entirety of American society. Imagine downballot GOP candidates two years from now, men willing to combine Trump’s utter lack of respect for societal and political norms (threatening newspapers with government crackdowns, mass deportations, encouraging supporters to assault protestors, building a Fortress America wall against Mexico, telling tall tales about mass execution of enemies) and naked racism with true-believer ideology rather than Trumpian opportunism. A sizeable portion of the Republican political machine in local governments, state legislatures, governorships, the House, and eventually the Senate will basically be the Sturmabteilung. I’m cribbing this from someone, but while Cruz or Rubio are a threat to liberal policies, Trump is a threat to liberal democracy. And the thing I want to stress above all is that win or lose, that threat will not end with him. The forces he has unleashed will not be put back in the bottle. They’re here to stay. The damage he’s done is incalculable.

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"Daemon was not a good man, at all." My point precisely. I thought the whole idea was that Daemon was such an asshole that it might make him King material, a la the popular notion of Shakespeare's roguish Prince Hal. And I don't know what "morally acceptable" has to do with it, this is not a series that has ever set truck by conventional morality. Anyway, I'm sorry for this back-and-forth, it's just that I am surprised how people see Daemon's actions so much worse compared to stuff in Asoiaf?

“I don’t know what “morally acceptable” has to do with it, this is not a series that has ever set truck by conventional morality.” This is a truly staggering misread. One of GRRM’s goals with this series is to resensitize us to horrors and abuses of powers that other medieval fantasies have desensitized us to, or ignored entirely. Did you read the scene with Blood and Cheese? It’s unspeakably horrifying! We are supposed to come out of that room realizing that nothing is worth this, that a line has been crossed and innocent lives utterly destroyed, that the man who ordered this is not roguish, but evil. Moral consciousness is central to ASOIAF. I don’t know how you can read Arya or Dany’s storylines especially and think otherwise. 

And as I’ve said, that “how much worse” game is a cowardly dodge. That other characters have done horrible things does not excuse Daemon one iota. He was an adult, and not just any adult, but an absurdly powerful and gifted one; he had all the choices in the world, and what he did with them was horrific. 

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The reason I love Cersei Lannister is because she‘s such a… refreshing female character to have around?

Like, she’s a female character who has absolutely been fucked over by the patriarchy and by the expectations placed on women in her society and by the men in her life and who knows that and who fucking hates it, she hates it so so so much and, unlike other female characters who have also been messed up by patriarchy (meaning literally every female character in asoiaf, btw) she rages against it, she refuses to just take it lying down, she adapts only because she is forced to and even then not really, and she cannot wait to go ahead and take bloody revenge on everyone who ever forced her into this situation

And she also absolutely hates other women, especially those who somehow adapted to this system that abused her so much, she hates that they have any fucking semblance of happiness that she can never have, and she feels so so so threatened by them that she just wants to destroy them, too

She’s definitely a villain, she’s abusive and terrible, but she is not a caricature or anything, it’s never made light of, it’s clear that what happened to her is tragic and unfair and horrible and that is so good to read

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Really have to apologize here, because it seems that I somehow mistook someone else's post in my feed for @racefortheironthrone. There actually were some things that ticked me as little odd for him, but apparently I'm selectively blind or just can't read the authors name... Here's the original post I referred to: http://asoiafuniversity.tumblr.com/post/130735143535/some-thoughts-about-book-vs-show-brienne So sorry!

Did you read the recent post from Attewell about the handling of Brienne and femininity in GoT? Though it had a bit too many "writers clearly think" bits, I think it had many good points to to back them up too. And though Christie is not bad in her role, show-Brienne clearly is only a shadow of her book counterpart.

I’ve looked high and low for this and can’t find it. Link, anyone?

Obviously without reading it I’m limited in my ability to comment, but the show’s version of Brienne took me a while to come around to because she’s so much angrier and more dangerous than her equivalent in the books. But eventually it became apparent that, well, yeah, she’s angrier and more dangerous – the best fighter Pod has ever seen, you know? So that’s how they’re playing her, as a deadly gunslinger, which is fine with me. It’s kind of the opposite of what they did with the Hound, who is comparatively mellow vs. his constantly, psychotically furious book counterpart.

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cersei could have been a great character. if she had been portrayed as i think she was originally conceived, as an intelligent, smart and determined woman, whose talents were basically curdled by growing up in such a confining patriarchy, whose ambitions were twisted into something malevolent and petty by the limits of her society--that could have been amazing. and i see the kernels of that character in the first two books. but then, grrm basically turns her into a misogynistic caricature.

she is every ugly stereotype of a woman, especially a woman in power: she is stupid, bitchy, power-crazy, petty, erratic, irrational, sexually promiscuous, childish and everyone is better off once she hands off her power to her father or uncle or brother.but she could have been great! i think perhaps a female writer could have handled her better.

I think it’s nasty of GRRM to write Cersei as being legitimately not as good (at ruling) as the men around her. It justifies the neckbeards’ ideas about women. Plus, it’s annoying that if one of the twins was going to have a redemptive arc, it had to be the man. If Cersei ever had the itch to rule (and there’s no reason she wouldn’t have picked up something from her dad and from Robert, even from Tyrion), and Jaime was just Westerosi Sawyer, Cersei could easily have been the good one.

Listen, I definitely, definitely hear that criticism. Trust me when I say that this isn’t something I haven’t thought about at great length. And it’s valid to have some pause about which sibling gets the redemption arc, totally. I actually remember having similar thoughts about Azula and Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender.

But here’s what I have to say about Cersei: in my view, her internalized misogyny is absolutely the point. There is no way that Martin wrote this by accident, nor is it a mere coincidence that she was punished in a specifically sexist manner, and that we were positioned in her head during it. I can totally see how she is an offensive stereotype, but the way she relates to being a woman, contrasted with say…Catelyn and her Patriarchy Brain, or Brienne who very specifically struggles with feeling like she has a place in the world, yet is somehow unapologetic for who she is (and Brienne is like, a VERY intentional foil to Cersei, both contextualized by Jaime and by her approach towards patriarchal oppression)…again, there’s just no way he didn’t know what he was doing. And as a feminist, the way he shows the ramifications of her internalized misogyny in both a comprehensive and authentic way is incredibly important to me. Cersei is incredibly important to me, and one of my favorite characters (in a literary sense).

I also think it’s important to look at Martin’s body of work. The fact is, he allows for different types of women to exist, blowing up the Closer to Earth trope. If you look at the pattern for how he writes women: Sansa’s incredibly strong resistance narrative, Brienne’s struggle with identity, Arianne’s actual empowerment, the way that he doesn’t just use violence against women as shock but actually intimately explores the extent of trauma and the way in which both men and women suffer from the sexist setting…I give him the benefit of the doubt. Look at his scripting of Dany, who shows herself to be an incredibly sympathetic and pragmatic ruler, albeit a green one (and again, another character that can very clearly be contrasted to Cersei).

Idk, there’s also something that strikes me a little…Men are Generic; Women are Special too about this criticism too. As if the scripting of Cersei as a bad ruler is an indictment of all women rulers, when Aerys II is hardly an example of Martin’s internalized misandry, you know? And also like, there is a really clear, sexist response to women in leadership positions within the fandom. People will absolutely rip Dany to shreds for not being 100% infallible, while jumping down the throats of anyone who suggests Jon made a mistake or that the Night’s Watch that mutinied might have had a bit of a point. So there’s just this clear double standard set up already: “A woman must piss twice as hard, if she hopes to rule.”

So yeah, Cersei was not a great ruler. She also was hardly the worst, from what we’ve seen. And even though her paranoia seems to be divorced of reality in a lot of cases (like when she thinks Loras and Marg are fucking, that Tyrion was responsible for Myrcella losing an ear, or that murdering Trystane Martell would somehow help her out), she’s also not entirely wrong. She’s a grey character. Darker grey, perhaps, than most of the other women in the story. But grey nonetheless.

Again, this gets back to Closer to Earth. It is not feminist to shove women onto these pedestals and have them be infallible. It is not feminist for women to automatically be amazing rulers when they lack experience or perspective. It is not feminist to say shit like, “if women were in charge, there’d be no wars.” It is feminist, however, to intimately show their struggles, their differences, and their greyness. Cersei has a point; She really is shut out of power by virtue of being a woman. But unlike Cat who understands that and tries to operate within the system to get the outcomes she wants, Cersei responds by absolutely hating her gender, and viewing herself as the exception, and going so far as to say that she should have been born a man in more than a few instances.

Cersei’s face was a study in contempt. “What a jape the gods have made of us two,” she said. “By all rights, you ought to be in skirts and me in mail.”

Purple with rage, the king lashed out, a vicious backhand blow to the side of the head. She stumbled against the table and fell hard, yet Cersei Lannister did not cry out. Her slender fingers brushed her cheek, where the pale smooth skin was already reddening. On the morrow the bruise would cover half her face. “I shall wear this as a badge of honor,” she announced.

[…]

If the gods had given her the strength they gave Jaime and that swaggering oaf Robert, she could have made her own escape. Oh, for a sword and the skill to wield it. She had a warrior’s heart, but the gods in their blind malice had given her the feeble body of a woman.

Now, about the space for misogyny it might have created…Martin is not responsible for his readers’ sexism. And frankly anyone who reads Cersei’s character and views it as some kind of indictment of female leadership (or feminism) is probably already coming in with their own agenda. Could he do more to silence that response? Probably. He could probably do more about the Sansa and Dany-hate as well. But is that really fair to put on him?

The thing is, Martin trusts his readers to be able to tell the difference between depiction and endorsement. That showing a woman like Cersei is not endorsing the view that women can’t be trusted in leadership, or can’t have redemption arcs. It’s the same way where he can show us Arya’s arc and pointedly give us chapters (TWOW spoilers in link) that make us feel uneasy without actually suggesting that this is a healthy and normal way for 11-year olds to act.

Maybe it’s a flawed approach. GoT is kind of living proof of the fact that some readers just really, really don’t get what he’s going for. But it’s an approach, and a narrative, that I will vociferously defend.

[dagsg]

Though I agree that GRRM didn't necessarily set out to write feminist fiction by default, I have always thought that his reputation as a "feminist writer" wasn't just because of his well rounded female characters (and it is sad, as you implied, if just basic good writing already makes one a "progressive" writer).

What I've thought to be the main reason for his praise as a feminist (and I've seen at least one interview where he's also self-identified as one), has been his representation of gender roles and norms, and how they affect and are really damaging to the individuals that don't fit into them, and those who do. This thematic element represents itself in most of the pov-characters, in male ones too (Samwell, Theon, Tyrion, to some extent Jaime too).

Personally I find maybe Cercei the most tragic one: she fits into her expected role in the society so well and easily, only that she hates it because it's not what she wanted to be. And it makes her bitter and to resent feminity.

on George Martin, ladies of ASOIAF and being ‘feminist writer’

This long-ass post was brought to you by me starting my latest ASOIAF reread focusing exclusively on the ladies, plus some acutely on-point tag meta by him-e  re: Martin’s approach to female characters. 

It’s an interesting phenomenon that’s by no means exclusive to the this particular fandom or even the geek community, by which famous male writers made a name for being ‘feminist’ by popular acclaim and little else. One example could be Charlie Kaufman; another might be pre-controversy Joss Whedon (who is currently in the middle of a controversy exactly because the public realized that he’s really nothing special in this regard). 

This kind of writers, and I’m fully lumping Martin in the group, are not feminist at all - they are simply good writers, who do well with characters, and thus end up writing well-rounded female characters. Repeat after me: if you can write, you can write women. It’s not indication of any kind of inclination for social justice. In an age of fandom activism and sub-par female representation, this is enough to get some writers raised to sainthood; it doesn’t mean they deserve it.

Martin is one of such men. He’s not out to subvert the patriarchy, as I’ve seen suggested every once in a while; he’s merely crafty enough to realize which tropes to subvert to make for interesting storytelling. (I’m also of the opinion that all this subverting was merely a smoke-screen writing device and ASOIAF will turn more stereotypically fantasy with WoW/DoS, but I guess we’ll see about that). GRRM representing a wide-range of female characters in his work doesn’t automatically have to mean that he sees these characters as anything more than a writing exercise; shouldn’t get him a feminist medal.

We talk a lot about the Bechdel test around here, which is by no means indicative of how feminist a work is, but it’s always interesting to do, so I decided to do some Bedcheling of my own.

The first female interaction in the books is in Arya I, when she’s arguing with Sansa. They’re talking about Joff. Scrapped. Then Septa Mordane criticizes her sewing. This one is good. Sansa I. She argues with Arya, which passes the test, but then it’s about Joff again. Arya II. There’s like half a page of her arguing with Sansa, talking about the tourney, but the underlying assumption is that Sansa is mad re: the Joffrey thing. Let’s say this is a pass. Daenerys III. She’s hanging out with her handmaidens, which is good, but it turns out all she wants is for Doreah to teach her how to ‘please’ Khal Drogo, who in that same chapter raped her repeatedly (but this is not that kind of post so let’s move on). 

I could go on in details, but I think we all remember how it goes - Sansa and Arya have a some more interactions, but only a few don’t make mention of / center about male characters. Lysa and Catelyn’s argument is more about Tyrion, Jon Arryn and Robert Arryn than it is about themselves, but must be a pass in some points. How revolutionary. There’s mention of Jeyne Poole in the Sansa chapter where she goes to Cersei, but the only dialogue they actually share is about Robert’s death, and the Sansa/Cersei conversation is obviously all about Joffrey and Ned. I think the mostly Bechdel-ish interactions of the whole book are the handful of lines between Dany and the handmaidens about Dothraki lore, but it bears noticing that Irri and the others are Dany’s slaves - they’ve been thrown together by circumstances, not choices. 

It’s interesting because, barring the above relationship, no woman on ASOIAF has friends. It’s interesting because it shows that, for all the glorification Martin gets, his female characters are yes, three-dimensional characters, but not women. They are nuanced in a way that has more to do with painting a detailed portrayal rather than going out his way to fully establish all these characters as their own people. He especially doesn’t try to establish the women of ASOIAF in a contest independent of male influence, which is what a true ‘feminist writer’ would do. Westeros is a heavily male-dominated society, true, but it’s a stretch that every woman’s character was first and foremost influenced by a man (you don’t need to search any farther than the family trees, and how everyone’s mother is dead or forgettable.)

The point I’m trying to make with the Bechdel line of reasoning is how odd it is that no woman in ASOIAF has female interactions worth of notice. This happens even when the character’s position would require it; it’s almost like Martin goes out his way to avoid writing such interactions, even when the worldbuilding suffers from it (the wife of the Warden of the North has no ladies in waiting? Cersei was alone before Taena came along? Sansa might be a hostage, but is there no woman in the KL’s court besides the queen? It’s weird but easier than writing girl talk!)

That the first instances of female ‘friendship’ we get in canon are in ASOS – mentions of Margaery’s ladies, some Sansa/Shae, Selyse and Mel, Daenerys and ten-year-old Missandei;  and that we have to wait until AFFC for a first-hand account in the form of Arianne’s flashback interactions with the Sand Snakes and Cersei’s description of Margaery’s court and her relationship with Taena. That’s a whopping 9 years after ASOIAF started to get a decent female interactions more than a page long. 

This is why Martin is not doing anything particularly extraordinary with his female characters, besides knowing how to write. This is why there shouldn’t be any kind of discussion on whether is is writing revolutionary feminist fantasy - all he’s doing is describing the world through a handful of female POVs who are all isolated or shunned from their peers, and however few mentions Margaery gets per book.

Pray notice, I’m not dissing Martin. I’m perfectly (okay, sufficiently) satisfied with what he’s accomplished, I’m just saying he shouldn’t get more praise than he’s due. Fleshing out a female character in a way that’s mostly shaped by the males in her life is not much of a feminist feat, and that if you actually pay attention to it the most genuine female relationship in the whole of ASOIAF is that between Arya and Sansa – pretty telling considering that they’re still children and not yet women.

Martin is a good writer, not a revolutionary. He set out to write a ‘classical fantasy epic’ (his words, not mine) and figured out that the best way to do it was though perfectly crafted twist, both of the plot and the tropes of the genre. The writing in ASOIAF is wonderful storytelling but not feminist activism; and should not be regarded as such.

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I think that the MCU has done a remarkable feat by convincing even a Nordic welfare-state socialist like me (who isn't familiar with Captain America in the comics) that the dude dressing up in Stars and Stripes is just super-decent top-notch guy.

Could you elaborate on that "commie" line in your Marvel Movie catch-up post? Not knowing the comics at all, Steve Rogers turned out to be pretty much the opposite of what I feared a character named "Captain America" would be.

Oh, for sure! The character in the comics, and as it turns out in the films, can easily be read as a progressive icon. But despite its liberal reputation Hollywood valorizes the military as an ideology in itself – most of the country does, of course; this also dovetails with Hollywood’s mounting love of wanton destruction, for which there is no bigger, better IRL engine than the US Armed Forces – and I feared the character would be an avatar of that kind of sanctified bloodlust. Not so, as it turns out.

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BoiledLeather.com/The World of Ice and Fire EXCLUSIVE: the contents of the Dornish Letter revealed

One of the most striking portions of The World of Ice and Fire continues in the grand letter-writing tradition of the Pink Letter. At the very end of the inglorious final stages of Aegon’s Conquest — when his failed attempts to conquer Dorne had led to years of slaughter, the death of Queen Rhaenys, and a campaign of torture and assassinations on both sides with no end in sight — a mysterious missive from Nymor, Prince of Dorne, delivered by his daughter Princess Deria, caused Aegon to visibly freak out and cut himself on the Iron Throne, immediately fly to Dragonstone on Balerion, and return to King’s Landing the very next day to sign a peace treaty reaffirming Dorne’s independence. Though the “maester” who wrote this portion of the book can only speculate as to the so-called Dornish Letter’s contents, a careful reading of the text, combined with (possibly spoilery) information gleaned from knowledgeable sources, has led me to a pretty firm conclusion about the message Aegon read when he opened that letter:

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if anyone ever asks me what tumblr is i’m gonna show them this video and just walk away

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Sakurai shares his divine wisdom http://best-of-imgur.tumblr.com