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biggest-hades-fan · 1 day ago

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Every now and then I come back browsing through Asoiaf content and while I'm well aware of the difference between the author's intent and the reader's interpretation, I just can't stand the utter condescension of the people who rush to say "it was intentional" every time someone complains about the grossness of his writing.

I don't believe that he's a bad writer, which is what makes it worse. He was definitely capable of doing better but didn't care enough to. The main thought I used to have while rereading the books was how repetitive and lazy he could get. Not only with the prose, but also the plots, character types and how he handles both rape and even (supposedly) consensual sex.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that people who somehow convinced themselves that he cares about the plight of women just because of his ability to write female characters, or that he knows what he's doing with all the sexual assault he puts girls from 12 to 16 through in the series need to take off the rose-tinted glasses and stop idealizing him.

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biggest-hades-fan · 1 day ago

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i’m very curious about the 19th century inaccuracies of grrm’s medievalism because while I know some?? it’s a lot more based in literature rather than history because of my areas of study. i just wrote an essay comparing disability in fantasy and medieval literature so it’s a topic i have somewhat an idea of but what would you say are the main red flag moments?

Hi, Anon! Your essay sounds very interesting. It's easier to point to patterns, ideas, and even set pieces in ASOIAF that echo or draw on 19th-century medievalisms than it is to point out "red flag moments." And to be clear, 19th-century medievalism can be fun! I love William Morris. But also, precisely because those medievalisms are so shaped by 19th-century European (!) ideas about religion, politics, and gender, I think it's good to be able to spot them for what they are.

For one thing, I would argue that the Orientalism and imperialism in the descriptions of the Dothraki and the cultures of the Free Cities are steeped in 19th-century medievalism. For that matter, the same goes for Varys: palace eunuchs, according to 19th-century European tropes, are untrustworthy because the Ottomans have them, unlike the English and French who are performing gender and empire correctly. Edward Saïd was right.

Also the profound anticlericalism and the assumption that literally no one actually cares about religion. The representatives of the Faith are venal and corrupt. Or maybe, at best, incompetent. Unless they're weird fanatics (see: whatever is going on with Rh'llor.) Jules Michelet I just want to talk!!!

As I have said before, at length: gender. The women of ASOIAF deserve better; they all deserve better; and they would have less shitty lives if GRRM read any of the scholarship on medieval women and their agency that has been coming out since the 1970s. As recent events in the US have decisively demonstrated, progress in terms of women's legal privileges is non-linear, but 19th-century Europe was still very invested in the idea of teleological progress towards modernity.

Finally, check this out:

On a platform beyond the southern entrance, formed by a natural elevation of the ground, were pitched five magnificent pavilions, adorned with pennons of russet and black, the chosen colours of the five knights challengers. The cords of the tents were of the same colour. Before each pavilion was suspended the shield of the knight by whom it was occupied, and beside it stood his squire, quaintly disguised as a salvage or silvan man, or in some other fantastic dress, according to the taste of his master, and the character he was pleased to assume during the game. The central pavilion, as the place of honour, had been assigned to Brian be Bois-Guilbert, whose renown in all games of chivalry, no less than his connexions with the knights who had undertaken this Passage of Arms, had occasioned him to be eagerly received into the company of the challengers, and even adopted as their chief and leader, though he had so recently joined them. On one side of his tent were pitched those of Reginald Front-de-Bœuf and Richard de Malvoisin, and on the other was the pavilion of Hugh de Grantmesnil, a noble baron in the vicinity, whose ancestor had been Lord High Steward of England in the time of the Conqueror, and his son William Rufus. Ralph de Vipont, a knight of St John of Jerusalem, who had some ancient possessions at a place called Heather, near Ashby-de-la-Zouche, occupied the fifth pavilion. From the entrance into the lists, a gently sloping passage, ten yards in breadth, led up to the platform on which the tents were pitched. It was strongly secured by a palisade on each side, as was the esplanade in front of the pavilions, and the whole was guarded by men-at-arms.

This is from Ivanhoe, and it is definitely the literary ancestor of the tournament in Game of Thrones. It even has a Queen of Love and Beauty!

Oh, and don't get me started on the Oppressed Peasantry™. I'm not tipping over into another 19th-century medievalism and saying medieval Europe was some sort of pre-industrial paradise. But we have higher wealth inequality now. Ancient Rome was a slave society. Treating medieval European societies as uniquely, unusually oppressive is, I think, harmful; it distorts past realities and obscures present ones.

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biggest-hades-fan · 1 day ago

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Rape and female social status in Westeros

Something that I always found strange and straight up bad writing on GRRM's part was the constant threat of sexual assault noble and royal women find themselves in.

Princess Elia Martell was raped and murdered, a lady of House Bracken was assaulted when Lannister forces sacked Stone Hedge (which I always found disturbing not only for being unnecessary from a narrative perspective but also because George famously dislikes the Brackens, making me question what his intentions were), Queen Cersei cynically tells Sansa during Stannis' siege of the capital that if Stannis' prevails, all the noblewomen present (Sansa included) would be raped by Stannis' men. Cersei's comments betray the fact that in Westeros, in seems to be expected that aristocratic women of any rank are gonna be brutalized like peasant women.

And I have to wonder: how is that seen as normal during westerosi civil conflicts? In real life (yes I know Westeros in fictional) noblewomen captured during civil wars were not abused in any way and were simply ransomed back to their families. This makes sense from a monetary perspective but also a political one. If noblewomen were treated the same way peasant women were during this conflicts, that would make for a very dysfunctional aristocracy. Noble house A, that had their men abuse the women of House B during a sacking could be interacting with House B at court weeks later. How it's that a sensible and successful way of having the nobility relate and interact with one another? It's not. And the same it's true with Westeros, you just have to think about the whole Lannister-Martell conflict.

It also makes no sense from a social hierarchy perspective. How can such a socially rigid society like Westeros normalice the prospect of soldiers and lowly knights getting their hands on women of high birth? It sets a bad precedent for the whole elitist social order. This women's social status seizes to exist when they find themselves on the wrong side of the war?

This, from a worldbuilding lens, it's absurd. And I think betrays not only a very childish perspective on GRRM's view of the Middle Ages but also a perverse fixation on GRRM's part in regards to rape (and don't get me started on his barely disguised fetish for child-brides).

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biggest-hades-fan · 1 day ago

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Cersei slept with Jaime in her wedding morning. She doesn't love Robert. So why is she mad at Robert for calling her Lyanna?

It's insulting. Robert's mind is not on the person in bed with him. Cersei's in a vulnerable, intimate position. And Robert's not even seeing her. Hell, as far as Robert knows, Cersei's never had sex before, whereas Robert absolutely has. He still got that wasted, and he still paid that little attention to his partner, her pleasure, and her comfort. A partner he believed was inexperienced.

It would be bad enough if this was a one-night stand. This, however, is supposed to be a wedding. A legal binding. And Cersei's husband cannot even keep his focus on her for that one, most important night. It doesn't matter that there's no love between them. It doesn't even matter to me that Cersei's seeing someone else. It's some pretty profound disrespect in that moment. Cersei's got reason to be insulted and angry.

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biggest-hades-fan · 4 days ago

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