#i blame the patriarchy

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

I mean, yes. Pretty much all Westeros noblewomen are boymoms by definition. They have to be. It's a patriarchy, and frequently your only access to power after your husband dies is through your son, your husband's heir. And thus you would have to compete with your son's wife for his love and attention if you want to keep that power. And in the case of royalty like Cersei, it's all the more so.

Though Cersei's particular obsession with her sons is more fucked up than even this fucked up usual, because of her incestuous relationship with Jaime, and her consideration of her children as the perfect union of herself and her "other self". The children also serve as her revenge on her husband and abuser Robert, by cuckolding him and secretly thwarting his legacy.

And of course Cersei's specific hate and fear of any of her sons' wives or betrotheds (Margaery, Sansa) is because of Maggy the Frog's prophecy that another queen would come, "younger and more beautiful", that would lead to Cersei's children's deaths and her downfall.

But yes, to anyone who doesn't know all these details, Cersei would simply come off as an extremely stereotypical boymom.

Boymom Cersei?

[medusas-daughter]

nothing just thinking about all the think pieces about how Shauna is cold towards Melissa but if a man in leader position growls "if she dies you die" to his subordinate before charging into battle he gets crowned the Internet's boyfriend but when a woman does it she's a cold hearted bitch who doesn't love anyone and like I'm not saying Shauna is particularly kind to Melissa but Shauna is not particularly kind to herself right now but she does care and it hurts her to care everytime she cares they expect her to butcher whoever she cares for so this time she's gonna butcher someone else and I personally think that's very hot of her

[cynicalclassicist]

Aye, that is true. No matter what a lady does in this society she can't fit in the role.

Something that feels skipped over in the perception of Sansa is that she also struggles to fit into gender roles. A lot of her hobbies are feminine and she fits a lot better than most, but in the first book she still struggles with being a lady. She feels embarrassed over not being good with numbers when its needed to run a house as a lady, she gets scolded for arguing with her sister and her father and for talking about beheadings. She has to constantly remind herself of her courtseys and to be a lady. Because even though everyone else sees her as one, it still isn't enough because the ideal of lady is impossible. Because there is no correct way to be a woman in a misogynistic society.

[fanaticalravings]

Love Aldo because "10 children because mama and papa didn't know any better" is an explanation that could only come from a gay priest.

Like besides the obvious, "wtf would you know about it?" of Bellini getting self righteous about family planning, it manages to sidestep that women particularly did know better but the Church taught that a man's right to sexual gratification and procreation superseded a woman's right even to health and survival.

But instead it's condescendingly condensed into "they didn't know better," not "we, the church, ensured they couldn't do better."

[cafffeineconnoisseur]

I am horrified at the way desi elders will force everyone to have kids but will never call out the absent fathers or the men who ignore their responsibilities as a dad and then proceed to blame everything on the mother

[cynicalclassicist]

Yeh, I've always been very icked out by Visery's marriage, as he was just 12 when he consummated it. But Larra Rogare wasn't being like Cersei towards Lancel, which is outright predatory. She is being forced into this marriage to advance her family's agenda. You still get this power politicking in the so-called Free Cities.

Okay, okay, I gotta be honest with y’all— I am low key a Larra Rogare defender.

Like yes, Viserys did not deserve what happened to him. He should never have been wed and bed by a 19 year old when he was 12, that is absolutely awful and disgusting. And nor did he deserve to be abandoned by his wife, from what we see of him it seems like he really did try to be a good and loving husband.

But Larra was not the one who asked to be in that situation! Her father forced her to marry Viserys, she didn’t have a choice in the matter. Yes, she could have waited to consummate the marriage, but even then you know her father was pressuring her to get with child. Should anything happen to Viserys, a child would ensure that House Rogare’s connection to the Iron Throne would remain. And she wasnt like some 40 year old woman— she was 19! She was still a teenager herself.

Then she is forced to leave her home and everything she knows and loves to come to a foreign land… where everybody fucking hates her. And don’t get me wrong, Larra 100% could and should have made more of an effort. Her disdain for Westerosi culture and snobbish elitism did NOT help her situation, and I think she chose to wallow in her bitterness and contempt instead of trying to make the best of her situation.

But even still, I’m sure it was very difficult, and some of the stuff she is most hated for I can’t even fault her for. Of course she would want to keep her own gods! They mean something to her, just as the Seven do to the people of Westeros! But rather than acceptance and tolerance, the nobility of westeros just despise her, spreading rumors and hate. And it all culminates with them literally trying to kill her! Her father dies, her House is collapsing, her brothers are arrested, and now the Kingsguard themselves are laying seige to Maegor’s Holdfast to arrest and kill her, with only two teen boys and Sandoq to defend her. Then afterwards, her brothers have to leave, and she is left alone to care for three children she never even wanted, one of them being baby Aegon the Unworthy, who was no doubt an utter menace of a child.

I think she was a miserable and frustrated woman, who like so many was forced into a marriage she never wanted to be in. It’s easy to demonize her because in this case the arranged marriage was to a young boy— an obvious victim. But that doesn’t mean that Larra had any more say than if her father had forced her to marry a 60 year old man. Lysandro Rogare was the real villain do that situation, and Larra was a victim of first her father’s orders and later of the xenophobia of Westerosi nobility and Unwin Peake’s schemes. I think eventually she just got fed up with it all, felt like she couldn’t do it any more, and left. It’s just awful that Viserys had to suffer so much in all this mess as well. But I can only blame Larra so much.

[opalsiren]

'sabrina carpenter is soooo male gaze-y' okay name one female public figure who doesn't have to cater to the male gaze, at least to some extent, in order to maintain their position in the public eye. if you don't like her make-up or costumes that's fine but don't act like it's some salient feminist critique to say wearing lingerie makes you an instrument of patriarchy when every single female popstar has to conform to a certain standard of femininity to reach acclaim. there is certainly room for a convo about why we only listen to music and watch films when the women creatives involved have flawlessly styled hair and a full face of make-up and impracticable clothes on 25/8, and how these standards implicate women in general. but critiquing this one single individual woman for being an arbiter of patriarchy smacks of weirdness. like just say you don't like her hair and go we don't need to act like sabrina carpenter herself invented patriarchy

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

#house targ basically cuts out the middle man #you aren't born for your brother to use as a political pawn and arrange a marriage #you're born to marry your brother and start the cycle over again #also think it's important that although Fire and Blood says Saera was happy with her life in Lys we actually dont know first hand how she #felt about being a sex worker. like yeah it's she may have enjoyed it but i think its also possible the book is reflecting Jaehaerys' biases #and just uncritically accepting the <she was always a whore justification>

I find it funny when people in this fandom point out that the Targ tradition of incestuous marriage is uniquely bad even within the broader context of the many coerced and abusive marriages we see in Westeros and people start screeching that the Starks also did incestuous uncle/neice marriages and that everyone is unfairly hating on Targaryens and actually what we see within the Targs is just bog-standard feudalism chewing women up and spitting them out.

The Starks *do* have uncle/neice marriages in their family tree but I think its important to note that the 2 examples here of Sansa and Serena Stark marrying their half-uncles Jonnel and Edric were done in the context of a succession crisis where North was staring down the possibility of its first female ruler in 8,000 years. And they decided that actually incest and allowing half uncles and neices to marry and letting the men's (weaker) claim supersede the women was the best option instead of just. Having a ruling Lady of Winterfell.

I wonder what this could possibly be saying in relation to incest and the oppression of women in patriarchial societies specifically?

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Yes, very good. I do love Margaery going mask off at last to show her genuine personality, and I also hope to see more of it in TWOW.

But please note that Cersei and Margaery and the Tyrell cousins are not getting humiliated by the men around them. They're getting humiliated by the women. It's septas who are stripping their clothes off and examining (sexually assaulting) the girls, and giving them scratchy shifts to wear and feeding them gruel and waking them up at all hours to order them to confess. Septons (including and especially the High Sparrow) wouldn't dare come near them, for fear of being exposed to "sin".

Yes, for sure the men of the Faith do think of Cersei and Margaery etc as idiot sluts and sinners who deserve their treatment -- but so do the women. It's notable that three women will be among the seven judges in Margaery's trial. It's notable that between the time Cersei tried to flee from the High Sparrow and the time she was brought before him to confess, the only members of the Faith who she saw were women. It's notable that women are acting as her guards during her house arrest in the Red Keep as well. The patriarchy is at its most insidious when it is being enforced by women.

And yeah, men were absolutely involved in Cersei's humiliation during her walk. But if you check her narrative, the people she takes most notice of and is affected by (and thinks the most vicious thoughts about), are women. (Including her hallucination of Maggy at the end.) This is for sure due to Cersei's own pre-existing misogyny, but it also reinforces it, and, well, again it will be interesting to see how that develops in TWOW. Although Cersei 2: Even Worse will likely be depressing as heck to me too...

They took my clothes from me. I wore a gown of ivory lace, with freshwater pearls on the bodice, but the septas laid their hands on me and stripped me to the skin. My cousins too. Megga sent one septa crashing into the candles and set her robe afire. I fear for Alla, though. She went as white as milk, too frightened even to cry.

My cousins? Alla and Megga are hardly more than children. Your Grace, this . . . this is obscene. Will you take us out of here?

i dont have anything to say about this besides it’s horrifying, it’s horrible and despicable that a sixteen year old teenager has been left in the position of “adult” and is more worried about her cousins because alla is only thirteen. it’s sooooo much and then there’s MORE because while cersei is gloating over what she sees as a win, she has no idea that these dudes also see her as nothing but a slut and an idiot just like every other woman, and all this torture she’s laughing over is about to be turned into her and she can’t stop it because she got rid of the ability to stop it so margaery would have bo way out. and now neither does cersei. like yeah she’s got her evil advisor and bestie qyburn who is going to get her out of this but god, cersei margaery alla elinor megga just get completely humiliated by all the men around them and it’s not only legal, they all think these women deserve it for *vague mumbling*

Margaery stared at her, then pulled her hand away. "Is that a jape? Boros is a craven, Meryn is old and slow, your brother is maimed, the other two are off in Dorne, and Osmund is a bloody Kettleblack. Loras has two brothers, not six. If there's to be a trial by battle, I want Garlan as my champion.”

This is really interesting to me because of course Margaery understands the situation she’s in, for all that everyone throws (deserved) criticism at Mace for pimping his fourteen year old daughter to every baratheon he could get his hands on, it’s clear margaery’s political education was not stifled by her father the way cersei’s was by both tywin and robert. she plays up a sansa-esque sweet innocent maiden taken in and eating up every line thrown at her because she knows it’s the only personality cersei won’t actively try to beat down but once it sinks in that it’s really hopeless, she simply stops trying. this little moment, margaery taken aback at how cersei really does think margaery is a fucjing idiot is the moment i think her mask finally slips and what’s left is a perceptive and bitchy-as-only-a-teenager-can-be girl who is no longer interested in wasting time trying to get cersei to like her. i’m really interested in how their relationship develops in twow before whatever the hell it is that happens happens.

[cedarboots]

reading janice raymond for a final paper and i thought it might be interesting in the same way that richard von krafft-ebing and havelock ellis were, but this is just genuinely making me angry

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

“i’m not team black, i’m team rhaenys.”

i think it’s incredibly idiotic to argue over which woman is the rightful heir when you could be arguing about how all of the women who were passed over/usurped are the rightful heirs 🤷‍♀️ rhaena should’ve been queen followed by aerea, rhaenys should’ve been queen followed by laena and then followed by baela, rhaenyra should’ve been queen followed by jace as king, etc. instead of continuously pitting the women in this world against each other, why don’t we just admit that the system as a whole is sexist and hold the people (cough couch men) upholding the patriarchy and denouncing a woman’s right to rule accountable instead.

they ALL should’ve been the mf queen.

[breserker]

mike flanagan is set to direct a new exorcist movie and i know he's good or whatever but i'm just so fucking tired, man. and it's not that exorcist is so sacred it can't have a shitty sequel (2, 4, 4 but the different one, all together disprove that) or a good sequel (3!!!!) i'm just. fucking tired of it. if they have to revive anything at all or keep sequelizing something why can't we get something forgotten or left behind (perhaps deliberately, considering the example i'm about to bring up) like Bullitt or something.

i think i'm also just like. one of my favorite parts of the original exorcist was everything about father karras, who is one of those characters who only hits harder and harder the older i get. and i feel like. idk. a character as complicated as him is not something i'm gonna expect, not because of flanagan per se but the Franchising of it all. flanagan could put a carbon copy crisis-of-faith priest in my face and i'm too jaded to bite the hook.

[butmakeitgayblog]

i don’t have a uterus so forgive my ignorance but… 2 weeks??? 😭 i thought it was one wtf have i been lied to

That absolutely is a lie pushed on society by big pharma and the industrial complex (don't fact check me on this) I mean everyone is different snd everyone has their own fun little insanity inducing ~quirks~ to their cycle, but most people I've known who have periods usually have the week or so leading up to the period where you are either extremely hungry or hate the sight of food, ya bloat, boobs are sore, ya get so fucking horny that a bitch gets close to licking their own phone if someone hot enough scrolls through. And none of that covers potential skin issues, sleeping issues, depression issue, etc.

Then the actual period begins 😒 which is a whole other clusterfuckery bag of systems to deal with. And they say 2-7 days. If you just felt like you heard an echo in the distance, that was the feral wildbeast screech of every person who is on day 9 of their period. Who thought they were done and went back to regular clothes only to fUCKING START SPOTTING AGAIN 😤

And none of that even begins to account for anomalies like endometriosis or polycystic ovarian syndrome which can lead to even longer periods, more frequent periods, intensely painful periods (think stabbing pain. Burning pain. Feeling like your lower intestines are being wrung out like a wash towel.)

And we do this every month. While working. And cleaning. And cooking. And being general useful members of society.

My point in all this being, everything you've ever learned as a "generalized rule" about periods is a gotdamn lie and just, just listen to people who have periods when they say it's hell and we deserve to nap, complain, and eat our little treats in peace

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

#beyond the scene being a commentary on rhaenyra/alicent’s reactions to her sexuality #it’s also an important scene bc rhaenyra is forced to lie to adhere to those expectations #and alicent finds out that rhaenyra is willing to lie to her to save her own skin #which has broader implications than ‘oh rhaenyra fucked somebody’ #alicent had spoken up in rhaenyra’s defense and it got her father fired and left her all alone in king’s landing #alicent was also trying to gauge if she was backing the right horse #and rhaenyra essentially confirmed (in her view) that she couldn’t be trusted #again complex scene complex characters (via @teagrammy)

#thisssss #too many people in this fandom refuse to acknowledge the world building at all #which is why almost thirty years past the production of agot we still have people making posts abt catelyn being the only person in westeros #that hates bastards (via @venusintheblindspots-blog)

Who cares who Rhaenyra has sex with

you know that tweet that was like ‘if youre creating a fantasy world why would it include sexism or homophobia 🤨 weirdo of you to put that in. why can’t everyone just be happy and liberated’ and how it completely ruined 2010s booktok fantasy. yeah asoiaf doesnt adhere to that a woman having sex outside of wedlock is ruinous to her reputation daemon taking her out on the town to specifically publicly do this and alicent taking issue with it both make perfect sense in universe its a mock medieval setting. canonically EVERYONE cares who rhaenyra has sex with it is an extremely significant plot point in f&b and hotd. alicent in ep4 is viciously jealous of rhaenyras freedom compared to her own continued marital rape/concerned rhaenyra might have been taken advantage of by daemon/judgemental of rhaenyra’s sexuality due to her conservative upbringing etc its a complex scene theyre complex characters. i can like rhaenyra and not personally care who she has sex with and say ‘a lot of the fandom wilfully misinterprets/underinterprets a scene to fit a narrative in which alicent is a onedimensional bitch’ those are not mutually exclusive

[marysbrighteststar]

therians and otherkin aren’t valid.

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

#and then arya is the lightning rod for everyone’s nasty thoughts about punishing gender non conformity #open the door and walk out of the dichotomy i’m begging (via @visenyaism)

#like neither sansa nor arya is supposed to be the CorrectTM way to be female #they are just two different ways of being #and they both get utterly punished by the feudal patriarchal system they live in for being female #and the conflict between them is very much based in the shitty patriarchal dynamic being imposed on them by the people raising them #but also they're just siblings who bicker because they are literally 9 and 11 years old #and like i really don't think that the ultimate message of the story is going to be that actually one of them was doing gender wrong all along #it's going to be that they both went through a lot of shit that utterly transformed them and allows them to re-evaluate one another #and establish a new dynamic once they are reunited #the pack survives #the same blood flows through your hearts #you need her and she needs you #like i dunno guys maybe the answer isn't that girls who like stuff that society devalues for being too girly are wrong for liking such things (via @transdimensional-void)

Coming into the fandom late, absolutely loving Sansa, and seeing the general fandom consensus on her was so jarring

this random middle school girl is just a lightning rod for every nasty thought people have ever had about girly girls being ontologically cruel and stupid. which is also what people do to her in the text it’s almost like the author was trying to Say Something? no. glitter eyeshadow just makes you evil