#And because the way WF has been used in the show veers pretty close to the same vibes of centrism

[invested-in-your-future]

What's wrong with Attack on Titan's depiction of racism?

Beyond AoT fumbling its metaphors hard (and landing somewhere in this weirdly centrist middle of "things bad"), one of the most unfortunate things one can do in terms of allusions to real world racism is to make your disenfranchised minorities "dangerous because of their magic".

I mentioned it before but that's one of the OLDEST stereotypes when it comes to variety of different cases of racism. All the urban myths about bloodletting, all the rumors about Romani people wielding "magic" and the long-running stereotype of black characters in the supporting cast having "magical powers" and serving as advisors to progress the plot. And that's just few examples.

Bigots LOVE those kinds of narratives to justify their hatred of the Other - its unfair to them you see, the deck of cards has been stacked against them from the start because "They" are running the world you see.

Sometimes the narrative manages to avoid it, like a lot of X-Men books highlighting how illogical racism towards mutants is in a world filled with cosmic beigns, superheroes, magic and literal gods. AOT is not that.

Rest is beyond the cut because obviously AOT spoilers

Within AOT lore you have a nation that literally holds the AOT world's equivalent of WMD in their blood. As in they literally have the power to end the world within their genes. Stressing the "literally" part here because the power literally activates via blood.

The Author then flip-flops between different cycles of racism where they are either victim or perpetrator, leading to "current " situation where they are essentially confined inside one concentration camp.

Let's ignore the troubling thematic ideas of centrism of how "minorities will go too far" for now. The story does.

Because that's not enough you see - the author then adds another flip where the MC, part of the said magical race living within a concentration camps, turns into basically Hitler who uses the hurt pride and grievances of his people to essentially kickstart apocalypse.

Now, given that would work real well to highlight the dynamics of authoritarianism and how people like that prey on the insecurities of other and how unresolved insecurities and rage can turn into something destructive and something awful.

Ironically, half the audience(readers and viewers) are caught by his charms and his rhetoric, just like it happens in the real world - using the show's equivalent of the hitler salute without even a single thought of what it actually means. People are angry that the rest of main cast are AGAINST this transformation of the MC.

Part of this sounds great right? The author had tricked audience into experiencing the allure of fascism and is just few steps away at pulling the rug from beneath them, right?

Except by the end of the final arc the MC, after doing the equivalent of setting off nukes through the world to destroy everything but his "Chosen Race", gets a pat on the back because somethingsomething magic bloodlines simply left him with no other choice you see. The show leers just few steps away from thanking the MC for doing genocide for the characters sake (and actually does that in the source). Its all the fault of alien magic powers that a special magic race of humans had now and not his.

So would the story now explore the actual power dynamics and how oppression and racism uses those power structures? No.

The very ending delivers a blanket statement that is basically "nukes bad and the world should do better to not be this way or everyone dies".

The ascent of authoritarianism of the lead character? The complex nature of oppression and generational trauma and rage? Doesn't matter because of time-traveling prophetic destiny-binding magic blood.

Not only does the story give the "magical minorities" the literal WMDs and has one of them become Hitler, but it also somehow manages to leer REALLY close to the WORST parts of Ken Levine's Bioshock Infinite where everything grows into thematically wishy-washy entertaining strawman arguments of "what if the minorities went too far"

The story blatantly uses and misuses allusions to real world racism and oppression and then handwaves it all away without making any clear-cut stance beyond "nukes".

It merely uses a harmful stereotype as a prop to deliver a milquetoast statement and walk back on any sort of stronger sentiment and also treats the part of audience (that missed the point it originally had made with the MC's direction) with kid gloves.

[jackoshadows]

Yes, it is not feminist to think that strong, independent women don’t need or want love, marriage and kiddies. It is true that women who are not traditionally feminine and don’t conform to patriarchal gender norms are often seen as being not romantic and not requiring love and marriage and this is falsely seen as empowering. And it is true that much of fandom and D&D/cast and crew have pretty much treated the character of Arya Stark this way. 

But it is also not empowering to think that women can only be happy and valid if there is romance in their lives and marriage and children. That’s basically ignoring the existence of millions of happily single women around the world who don’t bemoan the absence of marriage and children in their lives.

The point being that it is possible to make a case for Arya having romance, love, marriage and children in her story without denigrating single woman who are perfectly fine without any of those.

Yeah, GOT was terrible in how they wrote their female characters. But the over correction in the opposite direction about how Arya is now going to be miserable forever because she did not accept Gendry’s offer of marriage or stay in Winterfell being Sansa’s executioner and is instead sailing around the world with lots of money and servants? Yeah, fuck that. There is nothing inherently anti-feminist about the idea of Arya not wanting marriage even if D&D are sexist hacks. There is nothing misogynistic about someone head cannoning Arya as being happy exploring new worlds within the context of the show and it’s writing of these characters.

At least Arya’s ending on the show is actually open-ended enough that it allows for her to come back to Gendry or Winterfell or to Jon or find romance and love or opt to remain single and happy.  There are other characters who fared far, far worse.

Arya ending up with Gendry is a totally possible and valid ending for her. And a 14 year old Arya ending up single at the end of the books? Also a totally possible and valid ending for her - her character does not becomes less than or doomed to a miserable existence just because she does not find love and marriage at 14. It all depends on how GRRM writes her and what she wants at the end of the books.

Currently, book Arya is a traumatized 11-12 year old who thinks that the only refuge she has is with the FM - that’s why she kills the thin man under duress. She does not want to be kicked out of the FM and feels like she has no where else to go. We can only speculate as to where her story is going next in the books. To the riverlands and Ladystoneheart? To the wall and Jon? To the Vale and Sansa? There is also Nymeria and her wolf pack who will be playing a major role in the North and the whole fArya plot.

If we are looking only at the show, which main character got a happily ever romance plot?

Dany? Exploited by the Starks, betrayed by everyone and murdered by her lover. Sansa? Ends up all alone ruling the North. Brienne? Dumped by her lover.

What about  the men. Jon? Kicked out of Westeros. Bran? Turned into an unfeeling automaton who exists with no motivations or personality. Tyrion? All the other Lannisters are dead.

What about Grey Worm and Missandei?

The only two characters who manage to find love and happiness at the end are Sam and Gilly - and that’s most probably because D&D forgot about them and they were not all that important. I think we last saw Gilly in episode 4.

It’s understandable why D&D veered away from SanSan on the show considering that Rory McCann is like 50 and Sophie Turner is 21. There was speculation in book forums when the 40 year old McCann was cast as Sandor Clegane that this was an indication that Sansa and the Hound don’t end up together in the books. And from some of the comments Bryan Cogman has made, it looks like GRRM has not yet decided on whether to bring back the Hound and the show just went ahead and did it because the Hound is a fan favorite. 

So comparisons between SanSan and Gendrya does not make a case for Gendrya endgame in the books. SanSan did not happen on the show either and we don’t know if SanSan is a sure thing in the books. For now the Hound has a conclusive ending in the books if GRRM opts to not bring him back.

If Jon/Arya is a thing in the books, it’s understandable why it’s not a thing on the show. Considering the outrage from the general audience over Arya sleeping with Gendry, imagine the reaction if Jon/Arya happened?

And unlike King Bran, there was actual build up for Arya/Gendry on the show. Gendry was played by an age appropriate Joe Dempsie and Arya was played by a now age appropriate Maisie Williams. So, if Bran became king on the show because that’s his book ending, then why didn’t Arya end up with Gendry if that’s her book ending? A possible explanation being that this is not her book ending?

Arya is also a pretty little girl who is going to end up looking like Lyanna Stark - considered to be one of the most beautiful women of Westeros. Arya’s story is not about becoming a warrior woman just like Jon’s story is not about becoming a warrior man. She has learned how to fight using Needle, like Jon knows how to fight.  But Arya also knows poisons, how to read emotions, languages, politics and leadership. If she does get romance and love when she is older, this is nothing new or unconventional in ASoIaF. After all, wild child, horse riding, weapon wielding Lyanna Stark is one half of ASoIaF’s most romanticized couple. In GRRM’s original outline, the central romance was for Arya. 

GRRM is indeed writing an unconventional romance story in his books - for Brienne of Tarth, with a reversed Beauty and the Beast tale. Brienne, who is taller than Jaime, ugly and a fighter also does not conform to gender roles. Jaime/Brienne is quite popular in both the ASoIaF and GOT fandoms and we still did not get Jaime/Brienne on the show. Maybe because they don’t end up together in the books rather than D&D thinking that Brienne does not need a man?

It’s rather clear that Arya’s story in the books has strong connections to the North. Pretty much all the current female leaders of the North are Arya stereotypes - Lyanna Mormont, Wylla Manderly, Alys Karstark  - who Jon compares to Arya. But the show effectively took away Arya’s book story when they centered the Northern plot around Sansa from season 5 - D&D have admitted to Sansa’s Vale story being too boring for a TV adaptation.

So what can they do with show Arya without book Arya’s story? They could stick her in WF at the end - but this would just turn Arya into Sansa’s bodyguard/executioner instead of an important character in her own right with an ending that’s about her instead of about Sansa.

And again, with respect to the complaints about Arya not being with her family... Sure, book Arya loved her family and wanted to be back in Winterfell with them. But D&D basically destroyed the Starks as a family in the last two seasons and wrote them as Lannister lite selfish, xenophobic bullies who even turned against Jon in the end. So would Arya ending up with Sansa in WF be all that satisfying for Arya fans? In the context of the show, why would Arya stay in Winterfell?

I doubt that D&D sat there and came up with the plan of deliberately isolating Arya because they thought she was a strong, independent woman who did not need love. I get the feeling that she got this ending because D&D’s garbage writing over the last 4 seasons pigeon holed these characters into certain narratives and then they were stuck with that narrative towards the end.  Essentially all the bad writing for these characters from season 4 onwards - after they ran out of book material - is what’s responsible for these endings.

I think they just stuffed these characters into certain slots that is somewhat close to their book endings. I mean, have you guys seen their hilarious behind the scenes comments of the final episode? One of them being that after Jon kills Dany:

“ We did not really realize how much residual drama there was left - once we realized that both Jon and Tyrion were inevitably going to be prisoners, their fate was far from settled. So we went through a number of different versions of how to take advantage of that tension and we finally landed on the version we had in the dragonpit ”

Fans have put more thought, effort and time into trying to understand and dissect these endings and what that means for these characters than D&D ever did. And that’s the sad truth about this terrible show.

And considering what was done to Dany as a character and her ending on the show, the Starks and Jon came out of the whole thing with better endings that was unearned. It could have been far worse.