#me trying to explain why game of thrones is misogynistic

[valhalla-awaitsfor-us]

Hi! I hope you don't mind I take your reply to my post to talk a little bit about script writing as a scriptwriter.

This is in no way an attack, I just saw an opportunity to explain something as someone who works writing scripts.

At this point I think it's becoming clear that live action only exists because Netflix wants to have its own Game of Thrones, but that they are not going to respect the core of the original series, because their goal is different. Having said this, I want to review why the changes that are being made are incorrect (if the idea is to respect the story and the characters) focusing on the 3 protagonists: Sokka, Katara and Aang.

Let's start with Sokka, whose changes are perhaps the most "controversial."

As I said in my original post, The core of Sokkas character is that he is a boy who grew up trying to be a man since his father left for war. In that attempt, as someone immature and unguided, he had sexist attitudes, only to later mature and become a real man. Great example for young boys.

No, his sexism comments didn't last long, but they changed at a key moment in the plot: When Suki appears. Avatar is a special series because it was one of the first of its time to so explicitly touch on the topic of feminism. Rebelling in every sense of the word is a recurring theme in ATLA. Sexism was literally knocked out of Sokka when he met the Kyoshi warriors. That's why the scene of him wearing the warriors' clothes is so significant and why it's so important that at the end of the season Sokka has learned his lesson, because there is a direct comparison between him and Pakku. Sokka, on his path to becoming a man, was able to deconstruct his misogynistic mentality at his young age and without an adult guidance, while a man of Paku's age, admired and respected, was still rooted in his sexist beliefs.

It was Katara's act of rebelling against Sokka's sexism that freed Aang from the icerberg. Because, again, an act of rebellion, of standing firm in the face of injustice, along with redemption, are the pillars of Avatar. Sokka's journey encompasses all of those topics, and the fact that he is 16 and not 19 is essential to his character arc.

Is not that we want him to be sexist. We want him to be flawed. Because each flaw are unique to each character. It talks about their development and also about the themes of the show.

Also "Toned down" it sounds weird because as a kid I always knew Sokka was an idiot when being sexist. But it wasn't that bad that I was afraid of him or so angry that I hated his character. Because Avatar is a kid shows even if people from all ages can enjoy it. So when they said "toned down" I was really confused. It made me feel that for them, the only way to show him being sexist way to make him do some unredeemable thing.

Katara

So. Im gonna start saying that Im not a fan of Katara. I think her character is written incredibly well, but it just not for me. In fact, i do feel like we needed an scene between Sokka and her where they can clear the air about their mom. The things she said to her brother and to Aang, the only survivor of a genocide, were too hard to not have a talk after that.

NOW, After saying that, Katara is Katara because of her backstory. Seeing her mother die in front of her and being the only waterbender in her tribe lead her to feel the need to take care of everyone, especially her brother, to be overprotective, to be compassionate. To be Katara.

Sokka himself admits that sometimes when he tries to remember his mother he only remembers Katara. While Aang is a boy who must mature faster than normal, Katara is a girl who has already grown faster than normal and her journey not only includes rebelling and protecting others, but also recovering some of that lost childhood.

Katara is the representation of water. Healing and destructive at the same time. Turbulent but benevolent. I feel the live action writers, and even the actors and actresses, do not understand that the feminist message was already perfectly captured in the original material. The creators of Avatar created complex female characters and just because Katara's story is influenced by the concept of motherhood does not mean that she is not a strong character. She is a strong character because her story is influenced by that concept. Not because motherhood in itself makes us women strong, but because motherhood, specifically for her character, puts her at crossroads and forces her to go through an arc of transformation.

Aang

I'm going to be concise and short with Aang. The decision to have so many "distractions" in his mission is because Aang is 12 years old and does not want to face a war. I think it's something so basic that it seems dumb not to understand that a young boy doesn't want the responsibility of saving the world and seeing his friends die again. I think, maybe, just maybe, understanding that is not that hard.

If they wanted to write a story of wars, blood and darkness, they should not have chosen Avatar, whose protagonist is a little boy.

[idontlikejazzsonowitsmyname]

I genuinely want to murder whoever invented the "He's not a villain he's just broken... 🥺" quote. 

Seeing the way people who haven't even seen the Mario movie straight up call Peach a bitch because she didn't want to marry Bowser is genuinely freaking me out, "he just wanted love... 🥺" mf threatened millions of people, specifically targets her kingdom, and then threatened to kill the people she cares about infront of her. 

And I know god damn well that the "BuT iT's JuSt FiCtIoN. 🤓" people are the same ones who get angry at Bowuigi for being “problematic,” (its gay) These people seem to forget fiction is a reflection of reality, if your immediate thought to a fictional princess rejecting the hell lizard who threatened to kill her friends is “she's such a bitch" that's just misogyny, plain and simple. 

And I'm not even gonna bother trying to point out how these people are 100% using the exact same arguments as the pedophiles who drew child porn of streamers during minecrafts rise back into popularity in 2020.

 

Bowser isn't the only case of this either. 

I've been watching people do this for years with villains like Skywalker, Discord, The Joker, Steven Universe's Diamonds, Bojack Horseman, Silco, Walter White, Patrick Bateman, Every single game of thrones character, Resident Evil antagonists, jigsaw, and last but not least, REAL LIFE SERIAL KILLER AND RAPIST JEFFREY DAHMER. 

You know what every single one of these characters has in common, except for maybe Silco and Jigsaw? 

First of all, They're very pretty, their actors and designs are incredibly attractive, 

And second of all, they're bigots. 

I was going to write an explanation on why these patterns have been patterning for years and why it's gotten so bad, but i'm genuinely so tired of having to explain this over and over again, if you have enough critical thinking skills, you should potentially be able to think about this, and if you don't, than it's a good thing I gave up on writing the rest of this. 

TLDR: People are being misogynistic over a maybe 18 year old and a "nice guy" lizard and i point out how this is really fucked up and weird.

[finitefall]

These showrunners always excuse the changes they made by saying the book is "biased" , "propaganda" , "historians are misogynists" , etc...

if everything is totally made up , false , and propaganda.. then why bother adapting anything at all? Why don't they make their own story , invent their own characters . Because at this point 99% of the characters in this show only share the names of their characters in the book and nothing else . That's even worse than what d&d did , because at the very least their adaption was faithful to the source material in the first 4 seasons, they start making changes when they run out of the source material. While Ryan and Sara made radical changes from the very beginning when everything is present there in the book....

Not to mention that this is a screwed up argument since Fire and Blood wasn't actually written by Archmaester Gyldayn, but George R.R. Martin. The fact it's written as a History textbook rather a novel doesn't mean Martin isn't actually relating what happened, even though there are different versions as always in History and we know Mushroom isn't a reliable source.

But if we go with their argument, then you're right, there was no reason for them to say they wanted to make an "adaptation" of this book, except to try to seem smart and educated with their so-called representation of feminism and queerbait ship... which had the opposite effect since they only sound stupid, especially when they try to explain us that we're the ones who didn't understand the book characters.

You're right, at least D&D went with the original story at first. They made big changes with the characters and storylines even when they were still adapting the published books, but not to the point where a character had absolutely nothing in common with their book version. And for all its flaws, Game of Thrones still used to be a great show (in my opinion). From seasons 1 to 4, it was one of my favorite shows. What also makes a great show are iconic scenes and iconic lines, and there were plenty of those just in the first season of Game of Thrones. In House of the Dragon, the only iconic line, the one people put on their blog, is "Where is duty? Where is sacrifice?", which says a lot about the show itself and the ones who find the writing amazing.

An issue people have been talking about a lot is the misogyny in Game of Thrones. The awful sexism from D&D isn't up to debate, but when the writers of House of the Dragon said they wanted to "fix" the mistakes in the previous adaptation, we definitely didn't expect their screwed up definition of feminism.

Game of Thrones was a good adaptation (in my opinion) of A Song of Ice and Fire for a few seasons. House of the Dragon is more an original story inspired by (not even based on) the events in Fire and Blood than an adaptation of Fire and Blood. It actually reminds me of the debate over The Rings of Power, because I could enjoy it even though it has flaws as it's not an adaptation of any book (I talked about it here).

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

Lily Evans and Severus Snape: Headcanons

So, I was asked in the ask about Sirius and Regulus what I thought about Snape and Lily. At this point people are probably going, “Oh that Carnivorous Muffin is just clearly a Snape stan who thinks he could never do anything wrong and anyone who was slightly mean to him is evil.” Shockingly, I’m actually not, I just happen to think sexual harassment and attempted murder are bad and probably worse than JKR intended (I do think she was trying to go the “boys will be boys” route versus “oh my god, they just dumped pigs blood on Carrie at the prom and then threw her at a starving vampire”)

So let’s start on Snape.

First, Snape did live an incredibly shitty life, with circumstances beyond his control, that did lead to many of his poorer choices. In no way am I saying that it was alright for Snape to have grown up in an impoverished, abusive, household and endured years of humiliation and torment at school. 

That said, I believe that we all, in some respects, are responsible for our actions and our decisions. Yes, even when we come from non-privileged backgrounds. Life is hard, some people will have it much easier than you, that doesn’t excuse you becoming a domestic terrorist or tormenting and terrifying your students, young children, so much so that an entire generation comes out with a loathing and incompetence in your subject.

I guess let’s start back on his friendship with Lily Evans. We get... a really weird perspective from Snape on that friendship. Time and her tragic death have warped it into this strange worship where I’m not sure the Lily Evans that exists in his mind and memory is the one that really was there. She’s this shining Madonna idol who he failed, actively betrayed, is very very hung up about it years later.

I suspect they weren’t as good of friends as either of them thought they were and it comes down to Snape’s resentment of his own upbringing and muggles. I believe Snape was very racist towards muggles, specifically, due to his father. It was his way of grappling with his home life and only fueled by being in Slytherin. Lily was probably, in his mind, always a golden exception to the rule (Lily is the token, gold standard, muggleborn where she’s pretty, brilliant, charming, etc.) That Severus himself was a halfblood clearly caused him some angst. What I’m getting at is that I believe throughout their entire friendship, especially when they got to Hogwarts, there was an unacknowledged undercurrent of intense racism that eventually boiled up with that one incident in Snape’s fifth year.

Calling her that, while he views it as a slip of the tongue that damned him for all time, I see it more as a Freudian Slip. That sort of thing doesn’t just slip out from nowhere, not at that age when they both knew exactly what that word meant, it simmers beneath the surface, and was ultimately what he thought of her. Later, she became the Madonna figure that he views her as today (ironically perhaps even less of a person than he viewed her as at the time).

That said I think a number of factors played into the young Snape becoming a Death Eater. One, becoming friends with Lucius/that crowd who were all being sucked into Tom’s influence. Two, having his terrible home life and all the implications of Snape resenting his own blood status as well as muggles and muggle borns at large. Three, the loss of friendship with Lily (now there’s nothing to hold him back anymore, he has no reason to preserve muggleborn life). Fourth, Dumbledore’s letting Sirius, James, and Remus entirely off the hook in the werewolf incident.

That last one, especially, I imagine cemented Snape’s utter hatred of ‘the light’ (don’t get me started on the stupidity of light/dark in Harry Potter but I guess I’ll use the term) and those that cater to muggleborns. They’re hypocrites of the highest order, Dumbledore claiming to defend the poor and non-nobility, when he goes and does the exact opposite (James is the next lord Potter, Sirius is still pureblooded even if disowned, Severus Snape is a dirt poor halfblood). 

So what I’m saying is I understand why Snape did become a Death Eater, I do not condone this action. Especially as, unlike Regulus, Snape never gets cold feet. He loves being a Death Eater at first, he’s living the dream, getting all the revenge he ever wanted and burning the stupid wizarding world to the ground as he scrambles for ways to climb in Tom Riddle’s graces. We don’t see any hint that he was wavering, thinking of the fact that beloved Lily might die in battle, perhaps at his hand, until the prophecy. 

Now, I’m a little kinder than some about the prophecy. We know Snape overhears the first portion of the prophecy in early 1980. He eagerly rushes to the dark lord, regales him with the prophecy in both a) aid to the cause and b) in the hopes of climbing in the ranks and gaining the dark lord’s notice. At this point, Lily Evans is pregnant, perhaps knows the gender, but has not given birth. Months later, when both Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter are born at the end of July, Snape realizes he has signed Lily Evans’ death warrant (because despite Dumbledore talking, I imagine Tom always planned to kill off both children, Pettigrew just happened to make things convenient for Tom to go to the Potters first).

With Lily’s death now so inevitable, and her blood on his own hands, Snape has his existential crisis, goes to Dumbledore who puts the Potters in hiding and becomes a double agent. Snape also pleads for Lily’s life with Tom and he puts in a minimal amount of effort to spare the woman. 

Then Lily dies anyway and now Snape lives in the bitter cynicism most commonly seen in characters from Game of Thrones. He’s Dumbledore’s agent and sort of a Dirty Harry character, getting to see all the nasty things that many of the other order members never have to deal with. He’s one of the more intelligent characters in the series, able to see the truth of the world he lives in, but he also doesn’t care enough to actually do anything about it. He’s a bitter, resentful, and angry protector of Harry Potter, choosing to hate a naive child for all the reminders of his own terrible life (both in Lily, for failing and betraying her, and in James his most hated rival and tormentor). He gleefully enables the favoritism of Slytherin (my god how he panders to Draco Malfoy) while tormenting poor Neville into terror (that Neville’s greatest 13 year old fear is Snape is very telling).

Basically by the time we get to him in canon Snape not only isn’t happy but I think he doesn’t want to be happy. He’s accustomed to his bitterness, his cynicism, his quiet rage and moves forward out of both resignation, guilt, and a sense of obligation to a woman’s ghost. The actions he takes in canon aren’t so much for Harry as they are for the memory of Lily Evans.

Even if Snape could be happy at that point, change his life or his purpose, I do not think he would. He’s a man who has given up on life.

Now, onto Lily Evans.

You probably think I’m going to rail on her to for the sheer hypocrisy and nerve of marrying James Potter. I’m actually not. Lily Evans is one of my favorite characters in the Harry Potter series and probably the one I’d label as the most moral (though that’s a very low bar in Harry Potter, the characters are almost all assholes, but even so Lily would still be very high on the list).

You know what, I’m just going to damn myself and sound like a crazy person. Lily Evans always reads to me as a more moral young female Tom Riddle.

What the hell? You undoubtedly ask but I’ll explain.

Lily, while having a far more stable homelife than Tom Riddle, also comes from a muggleborn background. She’s exceptionally brilliant, very good looking, and very charming with a lot of people who would call her friends but no one close. Lily, aside from Snape (and that’s debatable), has no friends.

If Lily had not been a Gryffindor, and were Dumbledore not a raging misogynist, his Tom Riddle bells likely would have been ringing with her.

“But wait, that can’t be right!”

Oh, yes it can. First, as I went into above with Snape and Lily, there was something deeply wrong with that friendship. I believe they both considered themselves best friends, didn’t see many of the warning flags, but ultimately we see the giant fissure when Snape lets loose the m-word. Given all of that, I would not label them having been true friends in the first place. Just the appearance of friends.

Otherwise, while it’s very easily to canonically point out James’ friends it’s incredibly difficult to do so with Lily. First, people hardly remember Lily. We get Dumbledore talking about her like she’s the Virgin Mary, saving her son with the power of her love. We get Snape’s weird Virgin Mary impressions of her. Otherwise, it’s pretty much just Slughorn. Everyone else remembers that she married James and that was great because JAMES WAS SO COOL and that she had very striking eyes and was “nice”. Lily is less than a ghost in Harry Potter canon (sadly Harry never really realizing it).

Also, unlike James who has Sirius, Remus, and Peter to point towards (that are very important characters in canon). Lily has no one. The godmother was Alice Longbottom, a woman many years older than Lily and James who probably liked Lily well enough but I can’t imagine was a close friend. In canon there’s an offhand mention of two girls named Mary and Marlene but we don’t see much of them/Severus was always cited as Lily’s closest friend. As for Lily’s sister, well we know they’re estranged. I think it’s very telling that Lily writes a letter to Sirius, James’ best friend and certainly not hers, telling him that James is pouting over his invisibilty cloak. It’s because there was no one else to write.

So Lily Evans is a brilliant girl, who everyone likes and is very charming, but has no friends and led a very lonely and short life.

Here’s where my slack towards Lily comes in.

When she dumps Snape I completely understand why she did so. Snape dropping that word wasn’t simply a mistake, a moment of infinite regret, but something that revealed what he truly thought of her and where she came from. Lily was absolutely right in walking away.

However, without Snape, her closest friend is suddenly gone and the world is cold. As graduation approaches I imagine Lily’s career options become clearer and clearer. While very talented and smart, Lily is a muggleborn, what job she does manage to get (thanks to the sheer nepotism of the wizarding world/lack of jobs) will likely be through Slughorn if she manages to get a job at all. The world is cold and it is cruel and no one seems to even notice.

Cue James Potter. I do believe, probably until seventh year, Lily loathed James, not simply because of the horrifying things he did to Severus (and I’m sure she knew very little of it, Snape hiding most of it from her out of pride and shame), but because he’s just a giant dick. He’d make flirting with her a kind of game and joke to be shared with Sirius, something to hold over Snape’s head, like she’s a prize to be one.

However, by seventh year the werewolf incident has happened, Snape’s retreated further and further into Death Eater recruit land and she’s cut him off, and for all my “James is a dick” I do imagine he calmed down a little. Now that Snape is no longer friends with Lily/after the whole almost murder incident I imagine they didn’t bully him nearly as much as they used to. Though yes, they probably still bullied him, but Lily probably doesn’t know that now that she’s lost contact with Snape. 

James is charming and very good looking. He seems a bit more mature than he used to be. Lily is desperately lonely, living in a world that rejects everything she is, and James seems like one of the few who does support her (that James is more of a ‘pretty fly for a white guy’ kind of support for muggleborns doesn’t hit until later). So Lily is charmed and makes the largest mistake of her life, she and James start dating.

Now, given their extreme youth as well as Lily’s pedigree (say what you like, I don’t think Mr. and Mrs. Potter were thrilled that their son was dating a muggleborn) I imagine the wedding was a shot gun wedding and Lily got unintentionally pregnant. Yes, go ahead and throw fruit at me or call foul, I just can’t imagine they’d want a child that young while in the middle of a war while they’re part of an active resistance movement and only just out of Hogwarts.

Then things start snowballing downhill. Lily and James have just joined the resistance movement, Lily’s son is prophesied to defeat Voldemort, they strongly suspect one of James’ close friends is a spy, and they’re forced into hiding.

In hiding is where I imagine stress runs high and their marriage begins to fall apart. We know from Lily’s letter that James was routinely leaving hiding, using the cloak, so he could meet up with Sirius and Peter (I imagine Lupin’s on the out as they suspected he was the spy). While James might not realize what a big deal that was, I imagine Lily always did, and she begins to realize just what she’s gotten herself into but there’s no way out while in hiding.

Now we go really off the rails into headcanon territory in: what the hell is up with Harry Potter?

In my stories, I often choose the unwitting god route. Harry can’t die because he is a god, he becomes the master of death and always was the master of death. This is an answer, but it’s one that makes canon Harry a god and... I would not want canon Harry as a god. JKR and Dumbledore push the “Lily loved her child so much that it deflected death... multiple times” but this always felt... unsatisfying. Many parents love their children (fathers too, JKR, let’s not make this weird Virgin Mary thing) and yet Harry Potter alone in the history of mankind survives multiple times. 

Most likely, Lily pulled off some insane bullshit with absolutely no resources and minimal education AND EVERYONE IGNORES IT. We do know that Lily crafted the blood wards, wards stronger than anything Dumbledore himself can come up with/than Voldemort can break. Ones that protect Harry not only at home but away from it as it melts Voldemort for simply touching his skin. Lily pulled off the impossible in only a few months and did it right under everyone’s nose.

This makes her easily one of the most intelligent characters in Harry Potter. Probably beating out Dumbledore and maybe tying with Tom Riddle. And Dumbledore tells us, “Your Virgin Mary mother loved you so much, Harry, that it courses through your veins and lights those that would want to harm you on fire.”

So, that’s Lily for you.

Now, that said, I’m probably a bit biased and clearly very lenient with her marrying James. To be honest it took me years to figure out why the hell Lily would ever marry James after what happened with Severus and was always one of those weird canon things I never quite understood. He’s that good looking and charming, I guess, was my response.

The answer I now land on with some confidence was that the world is that cruel and bleak and Lily was utterly alone for two years.

By the way, a side note/plug, of all my stories while head canons do pop up here and there I think “October” is one where they tend to crop up more. It’s a vast AU of canon, but it gives an idea of what I think x character would do in y situation. 

[petra-realsnk]

The Logics of Sessr*n: why is it successful within women?

Hi guys! Here’s the post that I promised. I will try to present some thoughts I’ve been having around the infamous ship, and some of the dynamics I think have contributed to its success. The most logical reaction would be to think that most shippers are men, since the dynamics represented do favour them, but that’s not exactly the case. Some of you have also proposed that this could be explained through self-inserting, but I would like to expand this observation a little further. 

This post will be divided in sections so you guys can read the parts you find more interesting if you don’t feel like going through it all. I thought this would make it more enjoyable since it’s going to be quite long. 

DISCLAIMER: I am not claiming that this is the psychological profile of the average shipper, nor do I think that this is representative of the ideology of all of them. These are just some personal thoughts and facts around some aspects that I think have contributed to its appeal. Also I apologize in advance for the quality of my expression since English is not my first language. 

TW: Mentions of p*dophilia and rape. 

Finally, I would like to thank @doombull​ for facilitating me one of the articles that I’ve used to elaborate this thoughts, and which also served as inspiration for this post. 

Grab something to drink and let’s chat...

About the thrive of “Lolicon” 

We are all aware that Japan does have a problem with the permissive sexualization of children.

 “Lolita complex, the sexual attraction to young, pubescent girls, is woven into the fabric of everyday life in Japan. Turn on the TV and you’ll see group after group of scantily-clad teenage and preteen girls singing or dancing to music. Peek in any bookstore and you’ll find a section of photo books featuring children in swimwear. (...) During the six months from January 2016, police turned over 1,023 cases to prosecutors, compared to 637 cases for the same period in 2011 and 831 cases for the period in 2015, according to National Police Agency statistics.”

These portrayals do have impact on reality, and have been used by real life predators. Contrary to what some shippers say, there are experts in Japan speaking against this matter: 

“Masahiro Morioka, a professor of philosophy and ethics at Waseda University, has delved deep into the psychology of men with Lolita complex, widely known as lolicon in Japan. (...) He says the nation’s obsession with puberty-age girls has justified sexual exploitation and crimes against them — though, of course, not everyone with Lolita complex acts on their desires and commits sex crimes. Like many people, Morioka finds the culture that tolerates lolicon problematic and wants to change it.“

Lolicon didn’t become a recognized genre until the 1970’s when fan artists depicted their favorite female characters of the time as underage girls. The reasons behind the success of this type of content is something that’s still being discussed, but some of it probably has to do with the unhealthy relationship with sexuality that some men seem to develop due to the taboo component of sex within the japanese society. Some of it might also be derived from a mismanagement of loneliness, something some of these consumers seem to struggle with. All of this is combined by some misogynistic takes on the ideal of a woman. These men find the interactions with the opposite sex to be difficult, and even menancing to their masculinity, being easier for them to project their fantasies into young girls whom are esier to shape into their needs.

Anyway, it’s not the intention of this post to really argue the reasons behind lolicon, but there’s something important to have in mind, and it’s the fact that its accessibility has made it so that there are children consuming it. Simultaneously, popularizing Lolicon is a message to girls that they are objects for consumer consumption, and that their youth (and innocence) is especially desirable in a sexual setting. This last element has definitely gotten into the way some women want to project themselves. For that matter, it’s not a surprise that some female shippers project themselves into Rin, since she’s an ideal of femininity to them. 

Sources: 

https://bit.ly/39QA18d 

https://bit.ly/3ixPIFn 

Non-offending Pedophiles | SpringerLink

Internalized misogyny: 

Following the last thread, we can conclude that some girls might desire to appeal to this ideal of woman, which is absolutely normal. Gender roles are being pushed on us ever since we are kids, and it’s natural that some of them try to appeal to the male gaze in one way or another, most times even in a subconscious way. This would also explain why some shippers seem to adhere to some beliefs that have been used to justify the control over women’s sexuality. 

For example, we all have seen them argue about how teenagers are more fertile and prone to survive labor. They also tend to use the “historical accuracy” argument to justify these types of portrayals. However, the imaginary of the middle ages as a place where rape and child brides where totally justified is completely modern. Sadly, these types of tropes are perpetuated by almost every historical drama, fantasy series like Game of Thrones or books like The Pillars of The Earth. It is striking how shows whose action is located in the present are reluctant to show this type of things, while when they are located in the past, they represent them in an almost sexualized way and without any scruples. Male directors do use other cultures and past times to justify this portrayals, and is something that has to be called out.  How interesting is that some far right men identify themselves as vikings right? Wonder where that came from...

But why women? 

After all of what I’ve said, you may think that the majority of the shippers might be men, since all of these dynamics seem to favour them. Even so, despite being a shonen manga Inuyasha had a mostly female based audience. Romance played an important part in the story, and the way it was written seemed to cater better to the preferences of girls. This is also why Sessrin is so potentially harmful… It romanticizes a relationship between a teenager and an adult in a way that’s particularly attractive to girls. We can’t lose sight of the fact that a lot of shippers probably were fans of the og series when they were young, and probably  started to ship it as underage kids themselves. When they grew old, some of them left the idea of it behind but for some others it’s already deeply rooted in them. 

Next I’ll explain how Sessrin it’s appealing to girls. 

The polarization of masculinity and femininity: beauty and the beast

In the anime culture (and outside it) girls are represented as passive, while the male incarnates the active. Boys are the heroes, while girls are mostly portrayed as the object of desire through whatever traits the author finds the most appealing. 

In the case of Sessrin we have a typical example of a contrapposition of the hyperfemenine to the hypermasculine. I have talked about this in some other posts, but in the Inuyasha lore the masculine seems to be greatly associated with the “youkai”, that tends to fall in love with a vulnerable woman. It’s also interesting to point out that female demons tend to represent traditionally negative aspects of female sexuality; they tend to lure men to their demise by their attractiveness, and also do usually have a flirty personality. 

Sessrin does adjust to this type of trope that we can define as the classical beauty and the beast, not in a sense of physical attractiveness, but in the sense that it represents an aggressive masculinity that is soothed by the passive femenine.  The evil spirit is incarnated by the male, while the pure girl has the role of being accepting of this nature, often changing it. This type of trope is insanely popular within women, after all, stories like Twilight and basically every other book where a normal girl falls in love with a supernatural creature seem to adjust to this dynamic to some extent. It’s the idealization of a relationship where the man is a protective figure that holds an unbelievable amount of power over their vulnerable, and often infaltilazed, female counterpart. But on the other hand, women have the ability to tame this ferocity...

What’s the appeal of the monster? 

“I think with the monsters, it’s about power and danger and exoticness amped up to the Nth degree,” says Xavier. “One of the big themes in monster erotica truly is the power dynamic. The monster is big, scary, dangerous, dominating, and uses his monsterly qualities to overpower and seduce the maiden. And I think the idea of being seduced by something so wild and animal and dangerous…it’s kind of like being forced to play with fire and finding out that you enjoy it. It’s kind of this warm, fuzzy corrupted feeling.”

Interestingly enough, there have been studies on why the monster boyfriend trope is so successful. This can be somehow linked to “Teratophilia”, a term which describes the sexual attraction towards monsters or deformed people, though in this case we’ll go with the first meaning. 

Among other things, it has been suggested that monsters can function as an escapist fantasy for some women, since the monster is able to embody masculine attributes without presenting itself as a man, which may embody trauma and terror in extreme cases, or aggravating patriarchal arrangements in the least. 

The monster man represents masculinity through the eyes of women: it’s aggressive, unpredictable, and dominant. These stories allow them to give in into a feeling of vulnerability, they’re in control of the beast, they can even change them… It might not be a type of relationship they would desire in real life, but through these fantasies, they can experience some aspects of their sexuality and transgress the fear of man. This is very significant from a sociological point of view, these women might have been raised to desire this type of masculinity, but are aware of the threat it signifies to them. The monster guardian does protect them from the outside world, where they feel endangered, but they also are the incarnation of an “untamed masculinity” which they don’t need to fear. 

All in all, Sess*in allows shippers access to this type of relationship through self inserting into Rin. However, I hope this post has managed to bring something new to the conversation. There are in my opinion more reasons why girls want to be with Sesshomaru that go beyond his attractiveness, and that may have to do with these factors… 

Feel free to comment and add your opinions :) 

Sources:

https://bit.ly/3o6dERh 

https://tgam.ca/39ZADIS 

https://bit.ly/35YH4dO 

[commander-minkowski]

watched the first three episodes of netflix witcher and it’s uhhhhhhhh not good

tonally and visually, it’s clearly trying to be the next game of thrones. I shouldn’t have to explain why that sucks. tv needs to catch up to the fact that not every fantasy is grimdark and full of sexual assault. the witcher saga is, despite the dark things that happen, ultimately a lighthearted, witty, and hopeful series, and the worldbuilding is largely tongue-in-cheek pastiche and/or political allegory. that doesn’t come through in the show at all.

literally all of the ciri-related character choices are ones I disagree with. first of all, aging her up to late teens/mid-20s at series start completely butchers ciri, geralt, and yennefer’s book dynamic because ciri is a literal child and geralt and yennefer are her surrogate parents. and this is the emotional core of the entire series!!! if they meet when she’s 20 what’s even the point.

that aside, the way ciri’s arc is framed and paced does a huge disservice to her character. in the books, we’re invested in the ordeals she goes through during the war BECAUSE we already care about her as a character, not the other way around. it’s important to see her as a cheerful, rebellious child before shit hits the fan -- otherwise she’s just a wall to throw misery spaghetti onto and hope some character development sticks!!

finally, freya allan is a beautiful young woman and was thus severely miscast. where is my ugly little BABY

Yennefer’s arc kind of suffers from the same pacing and framing issues, though not as severely. When we meet her in the books for the first time she is already a confident, powerful sorceress, but in the show, she, like ciri, is constantly downtrodden and miserable. I get that starting from square zero is supposed to be #girlpower or whatever, but taken with ciri’s arc, renfri’s arc, and calanthe’s death, it kinda just seems like the women on this show are here to look pretty and suffer

Henry cavill .... how do I put this tactfully. His resting face doesn’t convey enough emotion to pull off geralt? Like, for a very taciturn and buttoned up, but nonetheless sensitive character, the actor needs to show that somehow. When cavill stares off into space I just get a feeling of blankness. like all that’s behind geralt’s tough mask is elevator music lol

Geralt comes off as just rude and cruel to jaskier .... grumpy banter and insults are, in the books, an established-friend-of-many-years thing, not a we-met-today thing. And even then it’s clear that no matter how much he grouses, geralt really loves dandelion. I don’t get this from the show at all -- jaskier sticks to geralt like a tick and geralt does his best to shake him off. also like. where’s the bed sharing and the wound bandaging and the tenderly carrying off the battlefield. I didn’t see the episodes where that would conceivably be but I know it would have been giffed to hell and back!

no slavic flavor. like none whatsoever. less than shadow and bone even. subzero levels of slavic flavor. I mean .... maybe it’s for the better that they didn’t even try because I can’t rmr a single western portrayal of fantasy eastern europe that isn’t cringe? (yes, even shadow and bone!!) but idk. I NEVER would have guessed the source material was Polish from the show alone and that feels wrong.

I concede that adapting the witcher saga is hard bc the story collections and novels are different beasts, and the novels imo really take a while to hit their stride; getting the two formats to mesh tone and pacing-wise must be difficult. surely netflix could have done better than this, though

a few things that I did like:

juxtaposing the striga fight with yennefer’s hysterectomy worked for me. something something the monstrosity of womanhood in a misogynistic society. edit: a gender critical adjacent person was in the notes of this so I’ll clarify -- I don’t mean to say that having a uterus/getting a hysterectomy have a one-to-one correlation with “the monstrosity of womanhood in a misogynistic society.” rather, I meant that in a misogynistic society, any actions women take and any choices they make can and will be framed as violent and ugly by the people who set the dominant narrative, even (and especially) if those actions were taken in self-determination and self-preservation. I include trans women in my definition of “women” here. In fact, for the books, I think a trans woman Yennefer reading is 100% uncontradicted and it’s also my preferred reading of the character. I apologize to anyone who saw this and thought I was doing some weak gender essentialist take!

some of the casting was on point. the actors for jaskier, renfri, yennefer, and calanthe were all great; triss and fringilla weren’t half bad either.

more racial diversity is good.

geralt’s dynamic with roach is nice I guess ...... geralt IS a sentimental horse girl.......

that’s all I can say, I think. keep in mind, again, I could only get through half of the season.

[mc-critical]

I really don’t understand the amount of people who apparently dislike Mihrimah for not giving Rüstem a chance/not having Rüstem grow on her. I don’t know entirely how I feel about Mihrimah as a character but I feel like if you were to dislike her that’d be a silly reason. It was a opportunistic marriage, one she never wanted and to a man she never loved. Not to mention he was also borderline pedophilic (when he said to her on her wedding night that he had been “waiting for this moment for years” when she was 17..okay) and then coercing her into consumating the marriage through the threat of suicide. Sure, the circumstances of Rüstem’s life were sad, but I don’t understand how that entails him being *entitled* to Mihrimah’s love or affection. And if anything I found Rüstem to be misogynistic and possibly even abusive, which likely made marriage to him all the worse. Mihrimah’s definitely not perfect or above criticism, but that doesn’t mean she owed any man love, sex or affection, royal borne woman or not.

I don't understand them, either. Because this is the last thing Mihrimah should be disliked for.

Rüstem is a very odious character with minimal redeeming qualities. His supposed love for Mihrimah is established disturbingly early on and while that may have fled over the audience's heads (it sure did fly over my head when I first watched the show!) because their marriage is a historical fact and as such, is automatically considered the normal course of things - the questionable pedophilic implications are definitely there and send off the alarming signs of utterly problematic behavior. Sure, he's done his duty by saving her after she fell off a horse and (little!) Mihrimah thanked him for it, but it is clearly seen in his eyes by the second episode he's on-screen that there's something more and something baffling when the girl is so young. And it only escalated from there.

Obviously, most of his fanbase ignores or flat out misses this aspect of his character, but I also find people that think that his attitude to Mihrimah is the only bad thing about Rüstem when I find most of his negative traits to be present outside of Mihrimah, but with her witnessing them. I feel the connection to Iskender Çelebi and the way he bacame the stable-man of the castle are his most important character establishing moments: they shine a light into his sneakiness and ability to play dirty, but also reveal his immediate prejudice against Ibrahim. The ambition, similar to Hürrem's, but not for the same reasons, is set up from the get-go. He's seemingly following Iskender, just like he comes to seemigly follow Hürrem, but he always forges his own path for his own gain. His alleged "loyalty" is the thing that Rüstem usually gets the most credit for, but while he begins to look like Hürrem's loyal companion that shall fulfill her every order, this whole facade is deconstructed and ultimately, totally broken apart in S04. His character establishing moments recontextualize all the decisions he makes in that season and show the true nature of his ambition: he followed Hürrem when she prevailed over everyone, he followed her when she seemingly gave him the world and all the desired power and when she and the one she wanted for the throne were put into a disadvantaged position and Selim got the upper hand, he ran straight for the opportunity, despite of him making an oath in front of the Quran not to do that. He turns out to be simply an opportunist hyena who works only for his own gain. Nothing more. Just like he saw the opportunity to get rid of the stable-man before him in the past, now he sees the opportunity to be on the winning side again with Selim. He doesn't care who is he in front of and who he promised what, as long as they're of no use to him, he bails. His "loyalty" immediately disappears from his positive traits, because it turns out he never had it in the first place. People praise him for his loyalty for Mihrimah, but that "loyalty" also lasted so long - when he found out that she wouldn't ever come to love him, he began to bang with Gracia Mendez, in conjunction with the betrayal of what Hürrem stood up for. Now, tell me, how can Mihrimah love such a guy? That was one of the only reasons she tolerated him and when even that was lost, how can she still keep her ties with him?

[His backstory is sad indeed, but the only thing it does is put his actions into perspective, not justify them or make him likeable somehow. Especially when what that "character lore dump" specifically explains is his refusal to tell Nigar where her daughter is - the backstory makes that action logical for his character, but it's still framed as nothing short of spiteful. That said, he still does have some soft sides and the arc with his brother is where I found him the most sympathetic - this is the time Rüstem actually showed vulnerability without false alarms or disguise and his brother was probably the only thing that was precious to him and stayed precious after all these years, consistently throughout his screentime. What helps even more, is the brother's role as a moral compass and the last bridge between the past/his loyalties and the future/the victories he would achieve through opportunism. That was the last gasp of what was left of his possible humanity and after his brother was killed, he let it go almost instantly, because... well, after he willingly chose his own life in the saray, he might as well continue to live it, right? Him saving a boy in S03 without any hesitation whatsoever, was also respectable. But these demonstrations of a softer side of his being are also taking place outside of Mihrimah, but with her not witnessing them altogether. And they do little in changing the general impression of Rüstem's character and his relationship with Mihrimah.]

We have to keep in mind that Mihrimah's whole S03 arc was finding purpose in her life and finding true love. She had many love stories throughout the series with different people, different personalities and different motives to try to make it work with them. No matter what they've went through together and despite of them all having the same outcomes due to different outside (and inside) factors, there is a reason she fell for these people in the first place. Okay, while for Bali Bey it was a bizarre, puppy, immature, childish love, for Taşlicalı something truly genuine began to flourish with all the glances, poems, dedication (Mahidevran succeeded to break them up, but it's not to be denied that Taşlicalı was very hard to convince and he was still thinking of her afterwards) and sweet words. She got a call for a new adventure with him. Bali Bey, on the other hand, was adored by her mostly for his handsomeness, I feel, but even when he tore all her dreams apart, he showed tact and respect. What I mean to say is, if Rüstem has qualities that are "worthy of Mihrimah", wouldn't she see them? Wouldn't she see all these virtues? Because all she sees before the marriage are his words that she will marry him, that she will be his and that's it. The best she sees of him is his good manners when he asks her whether she wants something or stuff, but he could do that with everyone else, knowing his post, and the previous implications make even that alone head scratching. Why would she want a man like that? I agree with all your points. Are you, people, denying Mihrimah her feelings? She realized the potential advantages of this marriage and agreed to do it regardless, why does she have to come to love him when he truly gives her no real reasons to, even before she married him?

I believe Rüstem cares about Mihrimah, albeit in his own distorted, toxic way, but in reality, he didn't do her any good. His relationship with Mihrimah revels in manipulation and facades for her to keep, because she has to "protect" her brothers. Rüstem never actually took account of her own feelings or opinions on matters, especially when what she proposed wasn't an opportunistic enough option for him to afford. Their interactions are mostly focused on the survival of the game and the actions that have to be taken to achieve that. He often puts an unbelievable amount of pressure on her, which while given because of the system they live in, hurt more than it helped. Their relationship was never allowed to flourish in a healthy manner and Mihrimah could never be truly herself in it, not even for a moment. The castle she lived in, her home, was merely full of tension every day, not a source of comfort. His stoic, serious cunning contrasts with her own spirit. Not to mention that it always seemed he considered his marriage to Mihrimah as a price, a goal he had finally achieved and I doubt that she wasn't aware of it to some extent. The root of the marriage is only political opportunism and no matter how hard you try, you simply cannot force a person to love someone they're with only out of sheer necessity, only for a purpose for "the greater good". Rüstem never did anything to earn Mihrimah's love and she shouldn't be hated for not loving him. This is what MC Rüstem is as a character, whether we like it or not, and he isn't a healthy person for Mihrimah. If she couldn't warm up to him when she fully got to know him in their alone time, that means something is missing. That means he just isn't for her and. that's. OKAY.

But there may be reasons why some people could dislike Mihrimah because of it. I offer my experience with cases I've encountered in forums: these people are usually very invested in Hürrem's character to the point they view everything she does as excusable, at the least, so of course they would want to justify Hürrem marrying Mihrimah to Rüstem. But plainly selfish political gain is no justification and that may leave cracks in their view of Hürrem and it all may disturb them to a great amount. That's why they channel this ire on Mihrimah and perhaps demand for her to warm up to Rüstem, so they get the justification Hürrem supposedly deserves, especially paralleled with Valide and Mahidevran's previous attempt to marry Aybige and Mustafa, who.. surprise, surprise (but not really), didn't love each other. There's another facet to this, with people seeing or wanting to see Mihri only as "her mother's daughter" and not wanting to marry, not loving Rüstem destroys that picture, because there's a "crack in the system", she doesn't listen to her mother, who obviously knows better and that could be disappointing or demotivating, given the expectations she has set when she defended her in E84. Or maybe they dislike Mihrimah for not loving Rüstem, because they do find something in him. They love "bad boys" and genuinely don't know why Mihrimah doesn't, either and that could make them see her as an annoyance. Or maybe they just anticipate more juicy scenes between her and Rüstem because of the probable chemistry between the two actors and if they watch it only for the spectacle (believe me, such people really exist!), they may insist that Mihrimah is only spoiled and ruined everything for them. Or maybe, again, people may find this insulting to the historical facts or whatnot and if Mihrimah didn't not stand him, this "mess" of writing could be fixed a little. The writers have ruined her character along with the history, according to them. It's absurd, I know and I don't get it, either, but the reasons are there, as far as I'm concerned. That still doesn't take away from the fact that this is the weirdest accusation you could throw at Mihrimah, with how Rüstem himself is.

You're right that Mihrimah has many other, vastly more offputting traits that she could be disliked for. Little Mihrimah is very brash and spoiled and entitled, to the point she gave her own mother a run for her money. That was gone when she grew up, but it would be understandable if some didn't actually believe the change, especially when she shows this side of hers again every now and then. She could be perceptive, but could also be prone to influence at the same time, sometimes to an annoying degree. There have been times where she has let her own bias lead her and that clouded her judgement in several occasions. She came to idealize her mother too much sometimes, as well. She was terribly insistent on her infatuation with Bali Bey and letting go of it took her very long. She didn't want to listen much to the enemies of her own mother. Her huge love for Bayezid prevented her from viewing Selim as objectively. She could be vengeful. She could be bossy. She couldn't fully face someone calling her out on her mistakes. (the confrontation with Selim in E139) She became so engrained to her castle life that when she was offered a way out, she didn't follow it. All these are very interesting character flaws for me, but I get why they might be a dealbreaker. But disliking or hating her for not loving Rüstem? Heck, hating her for her contribution to Mustafa's death alone is more valid than that! Disliking her for all these flaws piling up together is perfectly reasonable. But for this? It's strange.

[weirwoodking]

hi i was wondering if you would be interested in making a meta on the differences between show!sansa and book!sansa bc i know they changed a lot of her storyline but i don't understand why everyone hates on sophie turner? it can be short or inexistent meta if you're not up to it but i would be very interested to know what you have to say

I mean, the differences between the two are pretty simple. After season 4, D&D decided to cut Sansa’s book storyline, and replaced it with their own rewrite. This affected the plots of multiple characters, particularly Show!Theon’s and Show!Jon’s, but most of all, Show!Sansa’s, obviously. George himself has spoken on how much he hated what the show did with Sansa. He said in 2014 that he had “no idea what they were doing with Sansa or where they’re taking her storyline.”

I could go episode by episode and point out everything that’s wrong or is out of character, but it’s kind of useless. The show did not adapt books 4 & 5, it’s as simple as that, everything is different and feels like it’s out of character. For the first 4 seasons, I thought that Sansa’s story was handled fine (I haven’t watched GOT seasons 1-4 in over 4 years, so my memory is a bit foggy on the specifics tho). Sophie Turner isn’t exactly how I picture Sansa to look, but her acting was fantastic, especially for someone so young and for her first television role.

I personally haven’t seen people “hating on Sophie Turner”, but I’m not involved in the GOT side of tumblr, only the ASOIAF side, so I don’t see people talk about the actors that much. I do know that there are people in fandom (not just in the GOT fandom but in fandom in general) who will conflate actors with their characters. I have seen some toxic Show!Sansa stans do this with Show!Dany and Emilia Clarke (mostly last year). It seems to be more of a problem with female characters and actresses (‘cause sexism), and I think it’s really creepy and disturbing. Sophie Turner is not Sansa, so if anyone is “hating on her” because they didn’t like how the show changed Sansa’s story, that’s really fucked up. I don’t know much about the GOT cast, actually, I rarely watched interviews or behind-the-scenes videos. I don’t know if Sophie Turner has said that she likes the show’s ending or something like that, so if that was the case I could see people being critical of her opinion. But even if she did like the ending of the show and the way the writers changed her character after season 4, I still don’t think you should hate on an actor for that. Because the actors didn’t make the show, the showrunners did. It’s not on the actors to get everything right about their characters, it’s on the writers and directors to tell them the story and guide them through their acting. I don’t blame the actors for anything about GOT (no one should), I blame the writers.

What I find is the biggest problem about post-season 4 Sansa is how little regard they had for her character, while simultaneously claiming she was their favorite. I believe their exact quote was “Sansa was the character we cared about more than anyone”. Okay… then why did you cut her storyline? I feel like their whole “she’s our favorite character” act was more to try to defend against the criticism of the cutting of her storyline. What bothers me most is how they just casually threw her into the Ramsay plotline without thinking at all about what that meant. If you’re going to have one of the main characters of the show get serially raped, you need to think about what you’re doing and how to handle that horrific situation. In the books, the Jeyne Poole storyline is handled very carefully. The acts committed by Ramsay against Jeyne and Theon are never really shown, only implied, alluded to, or very briefly described. The show, on the other hand, explicitly showed Theon’s torture scenes, and made Ramsay a much bigger character in seasons 5 & 6 than he is in the books. I feel like they just used him for shock value, because so much of Game of Thrones revolved around shock value and in-the-moment reactions. I think they just saw Ramsay as a character they could turn into Joffrey 2.0, which is why they put Sansa with him. They didn’t care to follow Sansa’s book arc, they just wanted to continue the whole “caged-bird” thing with her, for shock value.

And to deflect against criticism, that’s why they made her so smart and powerful in the final few seasons. There’s next-to-no build up, no character development, no focus on her growth, the show just tells us that Sansa is the smartest character, and the audience is expected to agree. Because D&D did not care about showing her development. There’s a line in season 7, when Sansa and Arya kill Littlefinger, where Sansa says “thank you for all of your lessons, Lord Baelish.” And that immediately stuck out to me, because that sounds like something Book!Sansa would say. The show cut out Sansa’s Vale storyline, where she spends much more time with Littlefinger, and so… what “lessons” is Show!Sansa referring to here? They didn’t spend a lot of time together in the show. I do think that Sansa will defeat Littlefinger in the books, so that line makes sense for Book!Sansa.

What they did was cut Sansa’s storyline, throw her into a horrific situation that they used for shock value, and then expected to be praised when they made her a “girlboss” later on. They basically said “hey, we know we essentially erased this character’s arc and development, but at least we did a feminism, right?” And that’s what really pisses me off. The blatant disregard for female characters, then saying “no, we do care about them! Believe us!”

Lindsay Ellis has a really good video called “Woke Disney” that touches on this. Basically, she talks about how Disney’s recent live action remakes tend to make each of the princesses a “#girlboss” in a very corporate, fake-feminist manner that is very easy to see right through. (I recommend just watching the video, she goes more in-depth into the subject.)

A similar thing occurred with GOT (the show only had one female writer after season 4, by the way, who was a staff writer for season 8. And before that, only 4 episodes were written by a woman). D&D wrote a lot of problematic, misogynistic, homophobic, and racist things. Then they tried to cover that up with (to use a line from Ms. Ellis) a coat of #girlboss paint. For example, I remember after s8e3 (when Arya killed the Night King) came out, that was when the big criticism for season 8 really started. People saw how bad the writing of that episode was, and how ridiculous and anti-climactic it all felt. However, when people criticized the manner in which the Night King was killed (i.e. saying that it would have made more narrative sense for Jon to do it instead of Arya), there was another group of people who called that criticism sexist. “That’s sexist! You’re just upset that a girl did it instead of a guy!” Which… ugh... do I need to explain how idiotic that line of reasoning is?

And that’s kind of how the HBO show tried to get away with its misogyny, not just the misogyny of Dany’s ending, but of the whole show in general. “Look, we can’t be misogynistic, we had Arya kill the Night King! Look, we can’t be misogynistic, we had Sansa become a #girlboss!” Bullshit, you’re just trying to hide your sexism and bad writing behind a facade of fake feminism.

… *sigh* ...

Anyway, nothing but love for Book!Sansa, and nothing but hate for the writers of Game of Thrones. I hate how the show turned Sansa into a very polarizing character, when she shouldn’t be. None of the child characters of ASOIAF should be polarizing, they’re children for fucks sake.

I’m very excited to see where GRRM takes Sansa’s character in TWOW, I feel like she’s got an awesome journey coming up (hopefully involving her discovering her skinchanging powers, taking down Littlefinger, and heading north for home). 

Uh, wow, this got really long… and I’m exhausted after thinking about the sh*w that much. Here, as a treat for reading all the way down to the bottom, have a Sansa WIP drawing that I haven’t finished yet:

[lo-lynx]

No cock = no sexuality? Geldings in ASOIAF

TW: Rape, violence, sexism, racism

Spoiler warning: Spoilers for all A Song of Ice and Fire books

“Lord Crow is welcome to steal into my bed any night he dares. Once he's been gelded, keeping those vows will come much easier for him."- Val, A Dance with Dragons, Jon XI

First of all, this is a great quote by Val. Second of all, I’ve noticed that this idea of gelding/castration to reduce/remove male sexuality occurs relatively often in ASOIAF. Before I go any further, I feel like I should clarify that one’s genitalia does not determine one’s gender. A person with a penis is not necessarily a man, and a man does not necessarily have a penis. However, both in our world and in the world of ASOIAF people insist on thinking that and tend to place quite a lot of significance in specifically penises. I’ve written before on this blog about eunuchs, masculinity, gender etc, so in this essay I want to look at that issue from another angle, namely the assumption that no cock = no sexuality.

A while back when I was doing research for this essay about Vary and masculinity, I came upon this quote from the book Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond:

Why were men castrated? Several reasons can be advanced: control and domination, punishment, political reasons, need for special qualities or abilities, religious, sexual or erotic reasons, and medical or health reasons. Some ancient writers emphasized that eunuchs were easier to control. (…) In the United States in recent years there have been several movements to castrate, either literally or chemically, individuals involved in sex crimes, especially those involving adults with children. (…) How effective physical castration is in preventing sex crimes is debatable, in spite of public belief to the contrary. (Bullough 2002, 5-7)

Now, I think we can all agree that sex crimes should be punished. But this quote made me think about the practice of castration/gelding as punishment as it occurs in ASOIAF, especially since this quote states that the effectiveness of this is debatable. When doing research for this essay I searched A Search of Ice and Fire for the word “gelded” and got 55 results. Now, loads of those were about gelded horses, but 21 are about gelding people. Of those 21 results I judged 13 to be about how gelding was being used as punishment (mainly for sex crimes), six about how gelding would be used as preventive measures against sex crimes (and two I didn’t know how to categorise). I’ll go into some of these instances here, as I try to explore what gelding as punishment/preventive measure against sex crimes says about the view on masculinity and male sexuality in ASOIAF.

Now, first some background on masculinity and male sexuality. I’ve written EXTENSIVLY before on how from antiquity until modern times for someone to be seen as a “real man” their body and sexual behaviour has had to fit certain criteria. If you want to read more on that, go read my essay on Varys. But briefly: to be a real man according to (Western) society (from Ancient Greece until now) you have to act manly (be strong, in control etc), have a penis, testicles, have penetrative sex (preferably with women), and father children (or at least be capable of fathering children). So, if you’re castrated you can’t be a “real man”? Well, according to Westerosi logic, the answer is pretty much no. (See this and this essay) The consequences of these masculine ideals are quite clear in ASOIAF, as for instance researcher Shiloh Carroll have pointed out:

Martin rejects the idea that chivalry created an ideal society where men fought only to protect their women or in grand, bloodless tournaments, instead creating a society in which chivalry is a thin veneer over a violent, toxic masculinity that victimizes men, women, and children alike. Martin’s Westeros does not reward chivalry, does not even really believe in chivalry as more than a masquerade behind which ‘true’ masculinity- violent, aggressive, and misogynist- hides. (2018, 56)

As Carroll also points out, one of the clearest examples of this is the prevalence of rape in the story. According to her, it seems as if most characters in story believe that most if not all men are capable of rape (ibid, 93). It also seems clear that most of the time, such crimes are not punished. But let’s look at some instances where it’s at least on the table:

A former slave came, to accuse a certain noble of the Zhak. The man had recently taken to wife a freedwoman who had been the noble's bedwarmer before the city fell. The noble had taken her maidenhood, used her for his pleasure, and gotten her with child. Her new husband wanted the noble gelded for the crime of rape, and he wanted a purse of gold as well, to pay him for raising the noble's bastard as his own. Dany granted him the gold, but not the gelding. "When he lay with her, your wife was his property, to do with as he would. By law, there was no rape." Her decision did not please him, she could see, but if she gelded every man who ever forced a bedslave, she would soon rule a city of eunuchs.

(A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys I)

 ‘King Stannis keeps his men well in hand, that's plain. He lets them plunder some, but I've only heard of three wildling women being raped, and the men who did it have all been gelded.’

(Jon in A Storm of Swords, Samwell IV)

 ‘Well now,’ the serjant said, ‘naked steel. Seems to me I smell an outlaw. You know what Lord Tarly does with outlaws?’ He still held the egg he’d taken from the cart. His hand closed, and the yolk oozed through his fingers.

‘I know what Lord Randyll does with outlaws,’ Brienne said. ‘I know what he does with rapers too.’

She had hoped the name might cow them, but the serjant only flicked egg off his fingers and signalled to his men to spread out. Brienne found herself surrounded by steel points. ‘What was it you were saying, wench? What is it Lord Tarly does to…’

‘…rapers,’ a deeper voice finished. ‘He gelds them or sends them to the Wall. Sometimes both. And he cuts fingers off thieves.’

(A Feast for Crows, Brienne III)

Now, the two first people on that list are people we as readers tend to sympathise with and think are good people most of the time. Randyl Tarly much less so. But what these quotes do show are that gelding as punishment for rape is widely accepted, both in Westeros and Essos (even if Dany doesn’t grant that punishment in that specific quote it seems clear that she wanted to and would in other circumstances). It’s also interesting to note how, in the passage about Lord Tarly’s punishment of rape, it is also noted that the punishment for theft is the cutting off of fingers. One can see a parallel here, with in both cases the ostensible guilty body part being cut off (with rape the genitalia, with thievery the fingers). This attitude to punishment can be seen as playing into the so called “disability as punishment trope”. Researcher Mia Harrison describes that trope thusly:

The ‘disability as punishment’ trope is one of the oldest disability tropes, with its roots stretching back to biblical and mythological narratives. The trope is frequently used in classical stories where characters are blinded as direct or implied punishment for wrongdoing such as the biblical Zedekiah and Tobit, Rhoecus and Phineus of Greek mythology, and Peeping Tom in the legend of Lady Godiva. (Harrison 2018, 29)

Now, while one might want to punish rapists, one should remember that it’s not clear that sure castration actually makes people less likely to rape again. So, we’re really just punishing people with a disability, and by doing that essentially saying that a disability is a punishment.

Now, as I mentioned earlier in this essay, there’s also several cases of what I’ve called “preventive gelding”. The most prominent of these are of course the Unsullied, but I want to begin with a quote from Jaime III in A Feast for Crows when he talks with Ser Bonifer Hasty, who have been tasked with holding Harrenhal:

He was sober, just, and dutiful, and his Holy Eighty-Six were as well disciplined as any soldiers in the Seven Kingdoms, and made a lovely sight as they wheeled and pranced their tall grey geldings. Littlefinger had once quipped that Ser Bonifer must have gelded the riders too, so spotless was their repute.

So, here, similarly to the quote from Val that started this essay, a joke is made about gelding men to make them not rape people. The whole premise of the joke that Jaime remembers is that men cannot possible control themselves, and their sexual lusts, if they still have their genitalia. But, as I said, the most prominent example of “preventive gelding” in the books are the Unsullied. Here, I will once again quote Mia Harisson, because while she analyses the show, not the books, her point still stands, and I simply cannot put it better than she does:

The Unsullied are the most normalized example of eunuchs in Game of Thrones. Children are sold from a young age to the Unsullied slavemasters, with males being trained as highly obedient soldiers. Their names are taken from them, instead being replaced with that of vermin such as ‘Red Flea’ and ‘Grey Worm’, and their genitals are removed in the final stages of training. They are described as having ‘absolute obedience, absolute loyalty’ (…) The Unsullied body is systemized into fragments that are categorized as ‘useful’ (the parts of the body can be used to fight) and ‘useless’ (the parts of the body that cannot. The slave master demonstrates the systemization of the Unsullied body by slicing off the nipple of one of his soldiers while explaining that ‘men don’t need nipples’. The Unsullied challenge notions of ‘able-bodied heterosexuality’ by considering the sexual, able body as not simply unnecessary, but an obstacle toward obedience (…) The Unsullied do not embody a masculine identity- they are not considered men at all. This is not to suggest, however, that the Unsullied should be considered positive examples of non-normative identity representation. Instead, they present a clear idea of what should be considered the ‘acceptable’ queer or disabled body: docile, compliant, and useful only in the service of others. (Harrison 2018, 38)

So, the idea of gelding the Unsullied is that they will be obedient, and that their bodies can be utilized in the most effective way. It is also clear in the books that one of the so called “perks” of the Unsullied is that they won’t rape and plunder, for instance:

‘Your Grace,’ said Jorah Mormont, ‘I saw King's Landing after the Sack. Babes were butchered that day as well, and old men, and children at play. More women were raped than you can count. There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. The scent of blood is all it takes to wake him. Yet I have never heard of these Unsullied raping, nor putting a city to the sword, nor even plundering, save at the express command of those who lead them. Brick they may be, as you say, but if you buy them henceforth the only dogs they'll kill are those you want dead.’ (A Storm of Swords, Daenerys II)

So, soldiers who won’t rape and plunder, sounds great, right? Well, the drawback is of course that the only way characters can see this happening is by pre-emptively gelding them. Now, this is hardly unique to ASOIAF, during antiquity slaves were also castrated because it was believed this made them easier to control (Bullough 2002, 6). During this time eunuchs were also often servants to women at court, perhaps most famously in harems (Llewellyn-Jones 2002, 34). In part this connection between women and eunuchs seems to have been because both women and eunuchs were considered “imperfect creatures and incomplete human specimens” since they lacked testicles (ibid). Both women and eunuchs were also seen as sexually available, due to their lower social standing than men, which was the case in Ancient Greece as well as in “the East” (for a longer discussion about sexuality during antiquity and how it relates to eunuchs, see my essay about Varys). It is important to note here, that the contemporary and Western view of harems as a space where women were locked up is not necessarily accurate to historical sources. As Llewellyn-Jones points out, harems could often just refer to groups of women, not necessarily places, or something that were out of bounds (note the similarity to the word “haram”). Women in these harems could also often have great influence over court life, in many ways similarly to the noblewomen of ASOIAF. But, in the Western orientalist fantasy, the idea of eunuchs guarding rooms filled with women just waiting to have sex with men, seems to have stuck.

I want to briefly touch on another aspect of this, which is the idea of the sexually (non-)threatening man of colour. Now, throughout history, people from outside of ones own ethnic group have generally been seen as threatening (I’m not even gonna provide a source for that). In the contemporary Global North, this figure of the dangerous Other is often seen specifically as the non-western person (Ahmed 2004). Specifically in contemporary US (as well as historical US of course), one of the forms this takes is the racist idea of the dangerous black man. In contemporary America (and across the world), one of the ways this becomes clear is of course in the racist killings of black people (so I hope you all have supported the Black Lives Matter movement in whatever way you can!). Another way is, as black feminist and scholar bell hooks has pointed out, the way black masculinity is portrayed in movies. The good black man, hooks writes, “not only accepts his subordinate status, he testifies on behalf of and exults in white male superiority. (…) [this] character shows no romantic interest in the white female hero. He is merely protecting.” (ibid, 108). Now, I am NOT saying that this the exact same as with the Unsullied. For one, the fictional space of Slaver’s Bay is not the exact same as the real-life United States (even if there are a lot of parallels between Slaver’s Bay and Reconstruction, as for instance Steven Attewell has pointed out) And Dany actively tries to change oppressive power structures. But I find it interesting some of Daenerys’ most loyal fighting forces, who is very clearly Eastern coded (even if they have different ethnicities) are described as completely incapable of being a sexual threat to her. This can be compared to for instance the Dothraki, who are constantly connected to rape and (sexual) violence. As others have noted, the way that the Dothraki are described often invoke Orientalist imagines of the ‘Other’ as sexually deprived, and dangerous (Carroll 2018, 121) While Dany have some loyal Dothraki followers who respect her as a khaleesi, as soon as she interacts with one that is not from her khalasar, she thinks that this person might rape her (i.e. A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys X). Now, one could argue that this doesn’t have to do as much with race/ethnicity as just the fact that most characters in ASOIAF seems to assume that all men are potential rapists. But the contrast between these Eastern men (the Dothraki and the Unsullied), and how they are portrayed, is interesting. The Dothraki are sexual, violent, and a threat to Dany and other women. The Unsullied are not sexual, and while they are violent, they are not a threat specifically to women. They’re just a weapon, controlled by others.

 So, in conclusion, gelding in ASOIAF seemingly takes place as a punishment for rape, and as a way to prevent rape. Both of these practices seem to assume two things; firstly, that being gelded works to prevent rape, and secondly, that this is the only (or at least the most effective) way to control male sexuality. The validity of both of these things can be questioned. For one, I would like to believe that it would be possible for men to not rape people without their genitalia being cut off. But also, genitalia are not necessarily needed for sex or sexual violence. People can get creative. The last point that I want to address here is whether this argument about masculinity and sexuality (and race/ethnicity) is something that GRRM believes, or if it’s just something his characters believes. I honestly don’t know. As Shiloh Carroll has pointed out (2018, 56), GRRM sometimes seemingly makes deliberate points about how medieval society wasn’t just filled with chivalry, but also (sexual) violence. Does that mean he believes that male sexuality is uncontrollable? Probably not. But since he tries to get the point across about the darker side of medieval society, and probably also pulls on historical ideas of geldings and eunuchs, it might come off like that. This is especially unfortunate, in my opinion, when it also plays into racialized tropes about the ethnic Other’s violent sexuality, that must be controlled.

 References

Ahmed, Sara. 2004. “On Collective Feelings, or the Impressions Left by Others”, Theory, Culture and Society, 20(1):25-42.

Attewell, Steven. 2015. “A Laboratory of Politics Part VI”, Tower of the Hand. January 15, 2015. https://towerofthehand.com/blog/2015/02/01-laboratory-of-politics-part-vi/noscript.html

Bullough, Vern L. 2002. “Eunuchs in History and Society”, in Eunuchs in antiquity and beyond, edited by Tougher, Shaun, 1-17. Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales.

Carroll, Shiloh. 2018. Medievalism in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.

Harrison, Mia. 2018. “Power and Punishment in Game of Thrones.” In The Image of Disability: Essays on Media Representation, edited by JL Schatz & Amber E. George, 28-43. McFarland & Company: Jefferson.

hooks, bell. 1996/2009. Reel to Real: Race, Class, and Sex at the Movies. New York: Routledge.

Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd. 2002. “Eunuchs and the royal harem in Achaemenid Persia (559-331 BC)”, in Eunuchs in antiquity and beyond, edited by Tougher, Shaun, 19-50. Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales.

Martin, George RR. 2011a. A Storm of Swords 2: Blood and Gold. Harper Voyager: London.

Martin, George RR. 2011b. A Feast for Crows. Bentam Books: New York.

Martin, George RR. 2012. A Dance with Dragons. Harper Voyager: London.

[j-morgan-fly]

Fandom Discord, GOT/ASOIAF

You know what’s messed up? That I can’t even find someone to do commission of Jonsa with their four children from a story I’m writing because of the discourse in the Game of Thrones fandom between Jonsa/Sansa Stans and Jonerys/Dany stans. 

Like seriously? 

And by the way, I completely understood and respected my commission being turned down for the reason that the wonderful artist did not want to draw attention to themselves that would make them a target of ridiculous and unnecessary hateful criticism for choosing to draw that particular couple for me.

To the fandom:

I understand where both fans are coming from, I get what makes the couples and characters appealing and also what makes the couple and characters unappealing. But the fact that we give others so much crap over who we like is nonsense. There fictional characters in fictional relationships that we like to read, write and draw but that is all they are. If they helped you get through a tough time, that is awesome, for others these couples and characters might make them think of more upsetting times are people they knew in real life that hurt them or they see troublesome parallels with historical figures or events in which are controversial and dangerous. I know that happens a lot with Dany, but guys, be respectful, fight that urge to stand up for your fave if you think it’s going to end badly between you and the other person. I do it all the time. 

No one is telling you(or they should not be telling you if they are) who you should like but everyone is allowed to explain why or why not they like certain characters. If they think a character is racist, thats valid, that is their perspective and we need to learn from why they see it that way and bring that into our own lives and fix the way we see and treat people. If someone thinks a character or relationship is abusive, the same as the first point should be applied. 

Also, we don’t have to like a pairing or a character to appreciate amazing talent and art. I see Jonerys art posted all the time and I appreciate how beautiful and skilled the artist is even if that is not something I personally ship.

Honest to God, I don’t even really ship Jonsa. I don’t really ship either, I don’t think I’ve ever put much effort into writing a Jonsa romantic fic. I’m doing it now to learn how to get out of my comfort zone, to expand my writing skills and after I want to try my hand at writing Jonerys but ya’ll need to fucking lay off while I make my attempt and let me try without shitting on it because it’s not exact to how you see your faves. The same is applied for art. Do not EVER give shit to an artist for the basic ass reason that you just don’t like the pairing they have drawn/painted.

Like shit, I know we can’t make everyone happy, that really sucks but it’s life. We all got to live on this planet together, we are all on this god forsaken sight for some reason still, so lets me tolerant of each others ships and faves and keep our thoughts to ourselves if we got nothing constructive to say and the same goes for people responding. If you don’t like someone making a counter point or pointing something out that is in disagreement with your fave/ship and you can’t bring yourself to respond back maturely then fucking ignore it. Keep going, move on with your next thing. If you feel that you are just going in circles, no one is learning anything from each other and it’s just a roast then stop, don’t type another thing and move on.

This is not an attack on one or the other, I am speaking out to both sides!

Damn, can’t believe I even had to write this.

And if you guys want to give me shit about picking sides, point out all my ant-Dany rebloggs go ahead. I’m allowed to reblog, I’m allowed to agree with certain issues pointed out about their character mostly because their aren’t as many about Sansa not that the anti-Sansa force is not strong in that group. It is. And both sides usually have the same arguments over and over, at this point I think I’ve learned all I can about why people hate both and why people like both.

Shit, these girls are super flawed, we don’t need to pit them against each other but it’s also misogynistic to just think because they’ve been through similar trauma and are women they have to be best friends. They don’t. I also don’t believe either has to just accept and kiss the others ass either. They can be at odds, some people just don’t get along and sometimes it’s justified and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes you just have a gut feeling, sometimes you just butt heads, your unable to see eye to eye and that can lead to really, really bad conflict or it’s something that just means their will always be a huge distance between these two people. 

Thanks, that is it. 

[selkiewife]

Unpopular Opinion: The stans will always understand the character better than the antis.

*I’m using this definition of stan: an overzealous or obsessive fan 

In the Game of Thrones/asoiaf fandom, the criticism that is always leveled at fans is that they don’t actually understand the character they are stanning. I suppose the logic there is that their love for the character blinds them to the character’s flaws. I think this is more a case of tumblr culture and fans constantly being called upon to defend their favorite character. If you are constantly defending your character, you will obviously be highlighting the good more than the bad- especially against people who hate the character and seem determined to demonize the character and their fans.

I’ve had the opportunity to be involved in both the personal/fan blog side of things and also the RP blog side of things. And though the RP side of fandom has serious issues with personal drama and callouts etc. One thing they are really excellent about is respecting one another’s love for their characters. Even if it’s a character they dislike. I’ve even seen quite a lot of RP writers change their opinion about a character they initially disliked because of the insight that one of their writing partners provided about those characters. It makes sense that people should be more understanding of each other’s faves in RP, because if they lacked this understanding, it would to be very challenging to find writing partners. Whereas on the fan/personal blogs, you can get along quite well just talking to other fans of your fave and not interacting with fans of other characters at all. It’s more tribal in that way by design. RPing on tumblr is how I began to truly appreciate how interesting and amazing other asoiaf characters are besides Theon. 

Additionally, because there is not so much anti vs stan culture in the asoiaf RPC, you get to read lots of excellent metas written by your fellow writers- a lot of them specifically about the characters’ flaws and insightful explanations about them. Which indicates to me that stans on personal/ fan blogs aren’t ignoring their fave’s flaws so much as they are reacting to an environment where they need to primarily defend their faves. It’s almost like on the fan/personal blogs we have to get a goddamn law degree in defending Theon Greyjoy, or Sansa Stark, or Daenerys Targaryen or whatever character you are accused of being a “racist, misogynistic, xenophobic piece of shit” for stanning.

But it’s not just that stans know their fave’s weaknesses as well as their strengths, stans are also the most knowledgeable about their faves by virtue of their very obsession with them. The stans are the ones who are constantly reading and rereading their fave’s chapters, rewatching their fave’s scenes, constantly analyzing and trying to get inside their fave’s heads to create metas, art, fanfictions... like, how can you possibly stand there and say that this kind of fan misunderstands their favorite character? Have you read and reread their chapters? Memorized their lines? psycho analyzed them in this manner?

Now, I know it is true that some antis have done this as well. They have done a similar amount of research and a similar amount of obsessing about the characters they hate. But I would bet not quite as much as the stans. And the research the antis do put in is done with a specific goal in mind. The goal is usually something like, “I’m trying to prove through a close reading of the text that this character is problematic so I can explain why it is wrong for people to stan them.” And as such, in their reads and rereads, watches and rewatches, they are lacking something that prevents them from understanding the character the way in which the obsessive fan does. Empathy.

Empathy is defined as: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another. What the fans of a character have, that a hater of a character doesn’t, is a fuller understanding of their motivations, strengths, flaws, and arc through their empathy for that character. Both the fan and the anti both have the ability to intellectually analyze the character but only the fans have the added edge of empathy which provides more understanding. 

This is why I will always trust the fans when they say their character was behaving ooc or if their arc was ruined. Because even if I might not be a stan of that character, I put myself in the fans shoes. For example, I can imagine how it would feel if D&D had decided to subvert our expectations with Theon- not by killing him off for redemption but in making him revert again before killing him. Even though most Theon fans think his identity and redemption arcs would have been immensely more powerful had he survived. It still could have been worst than what we got.

What if they had the Night King trigger Theon’s PTSD and he tried to abandon Bran, only to die as a coward. It’s obvious to me that it would be a completely ludicrous ending for him- even more terrible than killing him for redemption. But I know that many Theon haters would say that it was inevitable and the only ending that could have been possible. They would say “Theon has always been a coward,” etc. They might see the “tragedy” in him struggling to overcome his “cowardice” but they would ultimately see it as a correct outcome. The Theon fans would know this is not true. They would know how he consistently faced down all his fears in spite of his torture and PTSD. They would know that cowardice should not be confused with PTSD (just as mental illness should not be confused with evilness.) They would know all of the intricate details of Theon’s rising again and survival symbolism. In short, we would know that was a bullshit ending that went against his arc and everything his character is and what his character represented. And we would have to keep hearing how we did not understand his arc- how we were not “paying attention.” All our understanding of Theon would be dismissed because we were his “stans.” But, that doesn’t make any sort of logical sense at all. 

So I guess what I am saying is, long live stans and long live empathy. Because I honestly believe without empathy, you are limited in your understanding of most things in life. 

[snowstcrm]

This is building off of @tomakeitbeautifultolive​’s Stargaryen twist theory.

I was looking over Tyrion and Sansa’s scenes and the one that stuck out to me with red flags during my rewatch is their balcony scene. I encourage people who are interested to watch the actual video because the pauses and Tyrion’s facial expressions are important.

“Many underestimated you. Most of them are dead now.”

Above all, this is Tyrion foreshadowing his own death. He drastically underestimated Sansa this season, and he lost in just their first conversation.

“I’m sure you weren’t thrilled to hear that the Lannister army is marching north. You have every right to be fearful of my sister. No one fears her more than I do, but I promise you--”

“Cersei told you her army was coming north... to fight for you.”

“She did.”

“And you believed her.”

Sansa was not buying it from the JUMP. She knows Tyrion isn’t that stupid and she KNOWS he knows his sister. Her eye is on Tyrion now. She tells him that she used to think he was the cleverest man alive.

The next scene to look at is Sansa speaking directly to Jon about Daenerys. 

Jon makes it clear to her that he’s never wanted a crown. Unless she’s truly heartless, she wouldn’t set him up to actually take the Iron Throne.

“Without her we don’t stand a chance! ...Do you have any faith in me at all?”

“You know I do.”

“She’ll be a good queen. For all of us. She’s not her father.”

Sansa didn’t outright refuse his belief. Just questioned why he thought so.

We are now at the point where Sansa is extremely suspicious of Tyrion and it’s also established that she has faith in her brother’s decisions.

The next scene is where she gets to speak to Daenerys. Im seriously shocked I didn’t notice this sooner but Sansa is having the opportunity to speak to each individual character to get a read on them.

“I thought you and I were close to agreement before, about Ser Jaime?”

“Brienne has been loyal to me always. I trust her more than anyone.”

“I wish I could have that kind of faith in my advisers” (!!!! GUYS)

“Tyrion is a good man. He was never anything but decent towards me.”

“I didn’t ask him to be my hand simply because he was good. I asked him to be my hand because he was good and intelligent and ruthless when he had to be. ...He never should have trusted Cersei.”

“You never should have either.” (Again, Sansa making it clear she knows exactly who Cersei is and Tyrion should know too.)

“I thought he knew his sister.”

/flash of recognition in Sansa’s eyes/ “Families are complicated.”

The next part is Sansa then getting a feel for Daenerys and her behavior. There is a small connection over their tough positions of authority and then they bring up Jon.

“He loves you, you know that.”

“That bothers you?”

“Men do stupid things for women. They’re easily manipulated.” (This could also be true for Tyrion)

Dany then explains how her love for Jon has brought her here, and again there’s this small moment of connection and understanding. Sansa says how she should have thanked Daenerys when she arrived and Dany reassures Sansa that she’s here because she loves and trusts Jon.

The conversation then starts taking a turn when the question of the throne comes into play. The tension is understandably high about this subject and we never get a proper answer here. I wonder if Sansa was looking for the answer from Dany: marrying Jon so they both have power and the North feels safe. Sansa already has the idea of marriage in mind from Littlefinger.

Obviously there are more small scenes, but I want to jump to the Weirwood scene. The war is over and tensions are high again. Keep in mind I think the writers are really pushing this “us against them” dialogue for drama, just like they did with Arya vs Sansa last season. It’s obviously trying to lay down this foundation but I think it’s a red herring and the truth is done off screen. The most important line is:

“I’ll never know her. She’s not one of us.” ... “We’re family the four of us, the last of the Starks.”

This is obviously a set up towards Jon telling them the truth about his blood, but it’s so important to frame this in regards to Daenerys as well! They believe that they can never know or trust outsiders, but then learn that Jon is just as much a Targaryen as Dany. His truth basically breaks their argument apart. By all means they should shun their secret Targaryen brother/cousin who has been ride-or-die for the Targaryen queen they’re opposing, and I’m sure especially Sansa realizes that he’s in love with his Targaryen aunt. They should be worried about his loyalties, but whoops! seems like blood really doesn’t determine who you should keep in your circle. 

We don’t know HOW this conversation goes or what comes of it or how long it was. I think it’s integral to the plot twist and that’s why it wasn’t shown on screen. The Starks have the information that Jon is a Targaryen and loves another Targaryen, but this seems to not be as shocking as you’d expect.

Now that Sansa has all the information she needs, she starts her plot to root out Tyrion and Varys and puts their loyalties to the test one last time. She feeds Tyrion the secret and is basically planting the act of treason in Tyrion’s mind-- which he then goes and tells Varys.

Perhaps the conversation between Tyrion and Varys was so blatantly misogynistic and infuriating because the writers wanted it to be so, intentionally to get us frustrated with their reasoning and to have them as opposition. I mean look at how many of us want Varys gone for his mentality and flimsy loyalty?

This plot line is just so good and even though the writing isn’t perfect, I fell like it stays true to the “game” and is the ending that will have the least amount of people going into a rage about their characters being destroyed. Sansa has every bit of information to put this all together and rip Tyrion and Varys out from their positions of influence. THINK OF IT. Why should Sansa be involved or even care about Daenerys’ camp? SHE ALREADY KNOWS TYRION IS BETRAYING DANY, if she truly wanted Dany to get fucked, she’d just leave Tyrion be and continue his plot. Sansa is getting involved. The Starks and Targaryens are mixing in front of us.

EDIT: She also baits Jaime into going to Kings Landing by talking about Cersei’s execution. She was testing Jaime’s loyalty and he chose his sister too. She really played the Lannister brothers so far. 

[balerios-blog]

Season 4 , Ep 8 thoughts

Before I begin I want to say that the issues that I have is with the writing and what I feel is an extremely poor direction the show as a whole has been through for quite some time now. I do not like Game of Thrones as a show, but I do not have issues with those who choose to portray their muse based on show events. I am going to handle it is based on characters (Jon, Sansa, Daenerys, Missandei, Jaime, Brienne and Cersei):

Brienne: Definitely deserve better treatment than what she received and I do not think I can properly put into words how angry I am for her.  

Jaime: My issue with Jaime and his behavior last night is his actions contradicts this ‘redemption arc’, which is extremely confusing. What he did to Brienne is typical fuck boy shit and I am not happy with it. Killing Cersei better be worth the pain he caused Brienne.

Cersei: My main issue with Cersei as a character on this show is how her behavior is always justified, but Dany is labeled as ‘mad’ or ‘power hungry’ for doing the same thing Cersei is. The double standard is unacceptable and for the last eight seasons I have been wondering where is all the ‘mad queen’ energy for Cersei? I want to touch her treatment of Missandei, but I am going to save that.

Sansa: Up until this season, I really have not paid Sansa much attention. My main issue with Sansa and how she is being written is how volatile she is. This post pretty much sums up how feelings with Sansa and I find her behavior to be unacceptable. Jon told her something (which I will get to because he should have kept his fucking mouth shut like Daenerys told him to) and instead of keeping her brother’s confidence, the FIRST thing she did was run and tell Varys and Tyrion. Her behavior only confirm what Dany was trying to warn Jon about in the first place. She has made it VERY clear to me that her only intention is to ensure Dany does not sit on the Iron Throne; her exact reason for being so hostile to Dany honestly have NO IDEA AND SOMEONE NEEDS TO EXPLAIN IT TO ME! Sansa and Dany have similar stories and considering how Cersei is a common enemy to them, being an ally would have made more sense.

Jon Aegon: I have no fucking clue what is up with Aegon Stargaryen. His behavior, how he is treating Dany is so extremely frustrating and hurtful to watch. He turned his back to her, ignored her plea of keeping his secret and now it clear he has decided to abandon Daenerys all together. For Jon to do this considering how much Dany has lost and sacrifice for him makes my blood boil. In addition, the question I need someone to answer for me is what was his intention of telling Sansa and Arya when he DOES NOT WANT THE IRONE THRONE? JON DOES NOT WANT THE SEVEN KINGDOMS, SO WHY TAKE THAT AWAY FROM DAENERYS I CANNOT UNDERSTAND. In addition, his treatment of Ghost was so heart breaking, and for D&D deciding to throw away Jon’s characterization and give him something he does not even want is ridiculous. I am not expecting much from Jon next week.

Daenerys: As someone who has fought Show! Dany’s characterization since the very beginning, having such a change of heart is crazy. The last two seasons Daenerys has soften and let her guard down. She surrounded herself my people she believed were good council and would help her achieve her life’s goal of taking back the Iron Throne. Her plan was set and everything was going, as she wanted – until she met Jon. Meeting Jon changed a lot for Dany; she put her war on Cersei on hold and followed Jon back to The North with Drogon, Rhaegal (Visierion died as she saved Jon from the Night King and the White Walkers) and her armies to fight in what she believed was right. She did not want to just save the North; to save Westeros from the NK and protect her people. When she arrived to Winterfell Daenerys was met with such hostilities and mistrust from everyone; Sansa using any chance she had to be snarky to Daenerys as if she did something to her. Dany wanted to prove she was not her father, she wanted to help the people and you would think after losing the Dothraki, a vast portion of the Unsullied and her most trusted and beloved advisor that would have been enough.

But of fucking course, it was not.

Instead of thanking Daenerys for the sacrifices she had made for the North, she was met with even more disrespect and isolation. While Tormund was praising Jon for riding on Rhaegal (like he wasn’t beyond the wall with Jon and she also said his fucking life), all I could think of was where was Dany’s congratulations when she was the reason her dragons were present in the first place? I cannot even imagine how alone she must have felt and the only person who knew how to comfort her was gone. She BEGGED Aegon not to say anything to anyone about his true identify and what did he do? After everything Daenerys has loss for him, Aegon decides to betray her trust to people HE KNOWS are plotting against her. She tells him she loves him and he has nothing to say to her. The North as a whole made it very clear they had no interest in helping her and so Dany went out on her own and once again lost. Missandei and Rhaegal were losses I do not think Dany will be able to recover from. Their deaths will culminate for Dany not taking any more shit and more importantly, being so angry with herself because she knew she should have followed her gut. She should not have given Tyrion so many chances, not to trust Varys and of course to follow Jon to the North. Dany should have went directly to the Red Keep the moment she came to Westeros and everything would have been over. However, of course she cannot do anything without being called the “Mad Queen’ or threating to be too consume with power. D&D have zero clue how to properly write female characters; a woman in power should not be perceived as negative. A woman should not have to experience tragedy and be the stepping-stone for a man to achieve his purpose. It is this kind of misogynistic writing that has repelled me from the show for so long and I HATE how this is it ends for Daenerys. It is not fair her entire series arc is just being used to propel Aegon forward; I am so angry by this.

Missandei: My heart is so heavy still for my beautiful butterfly daughter. I knew that she was going to die, but the brutality of it has made so angry I doubt I will watch another episode of this show. As a woman of color myself, I can identify with how Missandei felt during her time in the North. To see people they do not look like you do is always uncomfortable, but from a young age, we are taught to make the best any situation. However, to be treated so horribly, to have people look down upon you because you are different is so damn hurtful Missandei was uncomfortable and clearly separated from Daenerys for the majority of their time in the North. During the battle of Winterfell being in the catacombs with said people and having to listen to someone JUDGE the person you know has given up everything to be there is frustrating.

Especially when it is someone, you believe in and know that their efforts are being completely disregarded.

She believes in her Queen, Missandei knew if she wanted to leave and no longer be by Dany’s side, she would have let her go without any questions. This loyalty and love for Dany is what ultimately leads to Missandei’s death; a prisoner in chains to a woman who viciously murdered her just prove a fucking point. D&D did not consider Missandei as a WOC who spent the majority of her life in slavery would be HUMLIATED by dying in chains. She did not deserve to die; they did not need to kill her so savagely for the shock factor. People gave Daenerys so much shit for killing the Tarlys, but I have not seen the same energy for Cersei who killed someone completely innocent.

Overall, I am drained from the inconsistencies and shit characterization from D&D. The sad thing is my expectations were so low for this season and for them not even to hit par says a lot. I am so done with a show I cannot even began to describe. I just want everyone to die and I hope Daenerys burns KH to the fucking ground.

Fuck everything at this point.

[fatui-harbingers]

I have about had it with my cousin. I was trying to tell my sister about some plans I just decided on for my future education and career and I said “because of how Game of Thrones ended” (bc I was talking about planning to do more than act so that doesn’t happen nearly as much in the future) and she said “you’re still mad about that? It ended like a month ago.” And I just couldn’t believe she said that after I had explained to her A WEEK AFTER THE FINALE why it was bad. Not to mention she’s still mad about some guy winning The Rap Game.

I was just like “it’s really bad bc it was such a global thing and sent lots of bad messages.” and she said “there’s lots of stuff that’s big sending bad messages and I had never heard of it until you soooo” but I thankfully decided to be a little rude back for a change and said to her “just bc YOU never heard of it doesn’t mean others haven’t!”

Not sure what I expected from a lowkey racist, “climate change isn’t that big a deal”, “Not All Men” misogynist. Not to mention, this happened after she didn’t see why I was POLITELY arguing with my great grandmother about how we shouldn't tell girls they should wear longer shorts bc men don't know how to treat women (and ik NOT ALL MEN, gods, how could I ever forget anyway?) bc that's a dangerous argument that leads to victim blaming AND most people are sexually assaulted by people they know and trust. And, iirc, most people know their kidnappers too? So my grandmother's whole argument is based off of, as I kindly put it, misinformation.

Then she acts shocked when I get snippy back! Like, I even said “y’all are so rude to me and then act shocked when I’m rude back.” Uuuggghhhh!!!!!

And before all of that, my great grandmother brought up my acne first thing. Like, please, make everything about my looks. I’m already on birth control so there’s only so much I can do! Most of my acne is from my period week now that I don’t have to deal with ovulation anymore on top of that.

As you can tell, I’M NOT HAVING A GOOD DAY!

I cannot wait to get away from this place!!! But that’ll be forever. Oh well I guess

The only good thing that’s happened so far is my grandmother just said we all (me, my sis, and my cousin) look like Disney princesses lol.

[dillydedalus]

what i read in may

how is it may lmao... anyway i went thru a bit of reading slump this month and i’d like to pretend it’s bc i had a lot of uni stuff to do (i did) but tbh it’s bc game of thrones infected me with Vintage* ASOIAF Feels & i didn’t really care about reading anything else

celestial bodies, jokha alharthi (tr. from arabic) quiet and evocative novel about a network of families in a village in oman, told over three (?) generations, but centred on three sisters, mayya, asma and khawla (but not as focused on them as i would have liked). interesting to get some insight into omani society, class relations (& especially slavery and the now-free slaves), gender, tradition and westernisation, but it’s also really lovely and sad. ultimately a bit scattered and vague tho. 3/5

the taming of the shrew, billy shakes (uni) academia and assorted shakespeareans like bending over backwards to explain why this is not misogynist but actually subversive/farcical/ironic/meta or whatever and that’s a fine & worthy endeavour i’m sure but the only valid reading of the taming is that kate is actively plotting to murder petruccio in every single scene so... that’s that on that. misandry stars/5 

vinegar girl, anne tyler (uni) y’all i don’t have high expectations for hogarth shakespeare entries (tho shylock really won me over last month) but fuck this was bad. staggeringly BAD, both as a book and as an adaptation of shrew. it starts out with a completely declawed & detoothed kate, who on the scale of ‘timid wifey’ to ‘shrewish firebrand’ is uh ‘apathetic & slightly sour’.... which is a choice i guess. in the beginning i hoped we were seeing a kate who was repressing her rage (and there is one genuinely great line where the bianca annoys kate while she’s gardening and ‘kate stuffed a snarl of vine into the trash bag’ like okay anne that’s cool) and that the taming would be reverse, i.e. would free kate to feel & act on her rage. but instead... honestly i can’t even tell you what the arc was instead? there’s no real taming, kate (who is very stuck in her life and job) just chooses this green card marriage to become a little bit less stuck and i guess pyotr (petruccio) likes her the way she is, that is sour and Not Like Her Dumb Blonde Sister. and then in the end we get a speech about how men have it really hard bc they never learn how to deal with feelings (when kate throughout the book has herself struggled w/ social skills). can’t wait to rip this apart in class. 1/5 (ALSO how did hogarth have atwood on their roster and not give her the shrew wtf)

doctor wooreddy’s prescription for enduring the ending of the world, mudrooroo (uni) for my postcolonial australia course; it’s about the colonisation of australia and genocide against indigenous australians from the pov of tasmanians and an englishman who’s never seen a white man’s burden he didn’t immediately pick up (all based on real historical people). lots of interesting stuff in there (i’d love to read something about gender roles/gendered spaces in indigenous australian culture) but tbh it’s a bit of a slog (at 200 pages...) 2/5 embassytown, china miéville cool scifi novel about weird alien languages (the ariekei, who speak with two mouths at once and cannot lie - apparently their language doesn’t signify so...uh. linguistically not particularly sound at all but a) it’s a cool concept, b) they’re aliens so like whatever) and what happens when humans, not possessing two mouths and very much capable of lying, communicate with them. there is a lot of really original & fascinating concepts here but some problems w/ the execution (pacing/characters mainly) - not as much as with city&city tho. 3.5/5

the little prince, antoine de saint-exupéry (tr. from french) i wanted something short & bittersweet & this is it. anyway i have these vague & but very vivid memories of seeing like. a slide show of this w/ narration at the berlin planetarium when i was a kid & that is the best way to consume this story. 4/5

the year of the death of ricardo reis, josé saramago (tr. from portuguese) took me nearly 2 months to finish this & it’s under 500 pages which should already say a lot. i enjoyed this while reading mostly, and saramago’s style is beautiful, but it is a bit of a drag & reis honestly is not particularly sympathetic or interesting. the undercurrent of the rise of fascism is the best thing about the novel & makes the end really work but there’s too much tangential meandering about how old dude ricky reis is obsessed with a mucher younger girl and like... yawn. i will try again w/ saramago tho. 2/5

follow the rabbit-proof fence, nugi garimara (uni) story about three young girls with indigenous australian mothers and white fathers escaping from the residential school they were abducted to as part of the stolen generations, based on the author’s mother’s own life. it’s an impressive story of resilience and survival, but perfunctorily written. we’re also going to watch the film & that should be interesting. 2/5

everything under, daisy johnson i find it quite hard to talk about this bc there’s something quite vague and uncertain about it, something elusive. some things i will say: vivid, lyrical prose; the setting (oxford canal boat community) is great, the monster is genuinely creepy, and i really like the three (or 4?) narrative strands and how they interweave. i kind of wish i hadn’t known which greek myth it was a loose adaptation of (so i won’t say here) bc i definitely spent too much time trying to map the myth onto the book - and the ‘reveal’ might have been better w/o that knowledge anyway. 3.5/5

the sparrow, maria doria russell wonderful wonderful warm & human & tragic scifi novel about JESUITS IN SPACE!!! told in two timelines: in the first, set mainly in 2019 (which is great) music from another planet is transmitted to earth and emilio sandoz, jesuit linguist + multilingual (@hbo or netflix: cast oscar isaac please & thank), and his closest friends are chosen (by god?? MAYBE) to go on a secret space mission to make first contact bc jesuits.... have a lot of.... experience... with that. everyone is hopeful, curious, excited, and our guy emilio is literally radiant with god’s love or whatever. in the second timeline, 2060, emilio has been sent home by a second expedition, who have since gone radio silent, the only survivor, disturbingly (!) mutilated, broken in mind and body and unwilling to talk. all we know: the 2nd expedition found him in a brothel & he immediately killed the alien child who led them to him. so... what went wrong? (how could... first contact.... possibly go wrong...?) what did emilio do? was whatever happened god’s will? sorry i’m not super coherent about this but IT’S GREAT MY DUDES. also between this & canticle my scifi subgenre really just is ‘scifi but make it religious’. 4.5/5 

on the whole, not a great reading month, but the sparrow... *chef kiss* & i’m currently reading the artifical silk girl (relatable hot mess in weimar berlin) which is.... AMAZING... alfred döblin who???

[amphtaminedreams]

The Misogyny of Game of Thrones and its Treatment of Daenerys Targaryen: A Tale in Two Parts

TW// Discussion of Rape and Sexual Assault

The best way to sum up the majority of the Game of Thrones fan population’s relationship with Daenerys Targaryen is-

Daenerys: *breathes*

Game of Thrones fans: *insert Kermit trembling with anger GIF here*

You see, whilst every other character on the show can get away with anything short of rape and still be lavished in praise, Daenerys Targaryen only has to assert her claim to the throne and people are up in arms. 

And this tirade, courtesy of series 8 episode 4 of the show, isn’t just aimed at the fans. It’s aimed at the writers too. I’ve spent pretty much all day on Reddit criticising the way her character arc is clearly headed and desperately trying to make all those I-like-Arya-Stark-so-I-can’t-be-sexist fans see why I am so vehemently pissed off about it. Almost as pissed off as I am about the fact that every time I go to tweet something about Thrones on twitter, the most popular hashtag has multiple spelling errors. 

It’s hard not to notice that in an episode where one of the other female characters basically says that she needed to go through the abuse that she did to be the smart woman she is today (I mean, her just existing in King’s Landing and travelling alongside Little Finger would’ve been enough to explain Sansa’s political smarts and talent for manipulation but you know! Gotta throw a bit of rape in there too!), we also had Dany’s 2 male aides sit around and gossip about how the woman they’re supposed to be advising is out of control. Of course, forgetting the fact that part of Daenerys’ current state of mind is to do with her losing the majority of her army thanks to said advisors’ god awful advice; funnily enough, one of the most tired criticisms of Dany is that she doesn’t listen to anyone else but, like, I WISH that was true, if ONLY she would stop listening to the naive, dumbed down version of himself that Tyrion has become. Anyway, although it probably seems I’m writing this a bit prematurely, since we haven’t actually seen Daenerys go full “mad queen” yet, with all the mentions of her father (nicknamed the mad king after his enjoyment of roasting innocent people alive) and the way other characters have been speaking about her, it’s pretty obvious what’s to come. Not to mention that this episode’s final moments delivered what we are most likely supposed to see as the final trigger of Daenerys’ descent into “madness”, which was the wonderfully tasteful slaughter of the show’s only prominent woman of colour. I’m not even going to go into the symbolism of Missandei of Narth, previously liberated from slavery, dying in chains and how blatantly fucked up that is.

Imagine, the arc of a woman we’ve watched build an army, build followers, build self-confidence for 8 seasons, a woman who has been through abuse, rape, the death of her husband and child, the death of her best friends, the armies she built up, all of it, reduced to her ending up as the “mad queen” within the show’s universe. We know she won’t get a Jaime, Theon or Hound-style redemption arc either, she’ll end up dead, probably killed by one of the fandom’s more beloved characters. Because we all know her supposed madness justifies that, right? And lately on this show, everyone not protected with a hasty coat of plot armour and/or favouritism is dropping dead. 

I’m not saying Daenerys has to sit on the Iron Throne for me to be satisfied. She just deserved better than this. And in a show where Jon Snow can come back to life and Arya and Gendry can end up together and Sam Tarly can survive the Battle for Winterfell, surely, that isn’t so much to ask? She deserves to die without having her name dragged through the mud, without people acting as if her actions are inexplicable, without her being portrayed as if she’s just as bad as Cersei. She deserves to die that heroine that she is, the breaker of chains, the mother of dragons, the Khaleesi of the great grass sea and all that jazz, not another “crazy” woman.

She especially deserves to die without the fandom celebrating her demise as well, which they almost certainly will. The same fandom that cheered on Stannis Baratheon (up until the, ahem, daughter burning incident) for his ambition, ruthlessness and pride have long been calling Daenerys Targaryen a crazy, unreasonable tyrant for exhibiting the exact same qualities, albeit probably to a less cruel degree. Daenerys kills two traitors and she’s beyond redemption whilst Stannis burnt his own followers and was still rooted for by the masses. Jon Snow, The Hound, Jaime, they all cut down man after man after man and charge into battle without thinking, no big deal, they’re “good people at heart”, but Daenerys Targaryen is a psycho bitch, apparently, for using the weapon at her disposal to deal with enemies whilst at war and to punish slave masters. Double standards all round. It’s fine to dislike Daenerys Targaryen, but when criticisms are inconsistently applied to female characters versus male characters, I can’t help but think it’s rooted in misogyny, especially in a show with superfluous amounts of violence against women, a largely male audience, and since season 3, not a single woman in the writer’s room. If Dany does go on to burn down King’s Landing, it would be in a desperate attempt to wreak revenge on Cersei, a motive that usually spawns calls of “badass!” and an action movie trilogy when it’s a dude doing it (funny how women doing the same thing always gets them called vindictive and spiteful, isn’t it?). It would be an act of grief and an understandable outcome of having everything you’ve worked for all your life slip through your fingers to someone who doesn’t even want it, whilst in a foreign land, everyone you care about either turned on you or dead. If it was true that the woman who liberated thousands of slave men, women and children didn’t care about sparing the lives of the people living in the Red Keep, she would've burnt down King’s Landing and taken it the moment she arrived in Westeros, you know, back when she still had a huge army and 3 living dragons. Before she sacrificed them to save the lives of people she could’ve easily gone back to Essos and let perish, and wait for the winter to kill off her enemies. 

Yes, I’m uncomfortable with the idea of Game of Thrones ending with two “crazy women” facing off against each other whilst inadequate men, who’ve had a whole host of opportunities to stop things from getting to this point, sit around and get praised for doing the bare minimum. I’m uncomfortable because so many people with both conscious and subconscious misogynistic biases will delight in slagging off a bunch of female characters for being unreasonable and not fit to rule (don’t get me wrong, this definitely applies to Cersei but I will not stand to hear this about Dany, who did a fine job in Mereen when not having to deal with the Sons of the Harpies WHOM SHE EVENTUALLY DEALT WITH ANYWAY), whilst still patting themselves on the back for being inclusive just because they fanboy over the two female characters who refuse to associate with anything remotely feminine. Who excuse one character becoming a super assassin off screen but can’t excuse her pretty, dress wearing sister picking up some political know-how whilst spending her teenage years observing small council members and studying under Little Finger. Yes, as much as I love them, I’m talking about Brienne and “other girls are stupid” Arya Stark. In all of this, god do I want to apologise to Emilia Clarke and Nathalie Emmanuel for having to put up with their characters being decimated in such a way. They deserve better. We all do.