#or any character really. alwaysss looking for more songs

[trans-xianxian]

speaking of needing to finish certain playlists, if you have good songs for:

wen qing

jiang yanli

nie huaisang

mo xuanyu

nie bros

jiang siblings

wen siblings

mo xuanyu and wei wuxian

pleasseee send them to me love and light

[thelegendofclarke]

Sorry to bring up The Discourse again but how do you feel about the fact people don't acknowledge that while Sansa's traditional femininity is rewarded in-universe, it is a mark against her on a meta level? Many people decry Sansa as "weak" or "boring" or "stupid" due to her "girly-girl" status and her more traditionally feminine storyline, she is consistently in the bottom of character polls because people have been programmed to devalue or even hate "girly-girls".

Hey Anon!

You’re totally fine :) I really don’t mind discussing or even debating this topic tbh. It’s the condescension, vitriol, and being called an unfeminist asshole ect. ect. that I’m not particularly a fan of haha.

You’re getting into a few different points here and I’m going to attempt to talk about them in a semi -organized, coherent manner. So bear with me… Your first point of “while Sansa’s traditional femininity is rewarded in-universe” touches on one of the (floppity trillion) things that kind of ~grinds my gears~ about how this topic is discussed. 

Its a pretty significant misstatement and misconception to say that any woman is “rewarded in a patriarchy,” especially an incredibly oppressive patriarchy like Westeros. No woman is ever rewarded in a patriarchy. Not being punished is not a reward. Not being mocked or ostracized is not a reward. Being praised for conforming to an arbitrary set of standards aggressively imposed on you by society is not a reward. Not being beaten or otherwise abused is not a reward. Having basic human rights and freedoms is not a reward. Being treated with basic human decency and respect is not a reward. And tbh, thinking that these things are “rewards” is one of the things that allows a patriarchy to function in this manner in the first place. 

It’s one of the most effective tactics of oppressive societies: they shrink the size of your world and the scope of your permissible behavior, punishing you when you cross an invisible line that is perpetually moving, until you are basically stuck on a tiny patch of grass like a dog unwilling to cross an electric fence. So then, when they finally open the gd gate to take you for a walk, you’re supposed to feel grateful and say “thankyouthankyouthankyou” and pee yourself with excitement. And you do; even when you’re owned, even when you’re property. even when you’re still firmly on their leash, they can somehow make it feel like freedom. 

Margaret Atwood has some very good (and creepily accurate/applicable) quotes in The Handmaid’s Tale that really get to the heart of the problem with the idea that freedom in the most basic sense is a “reward”…

“A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.”

“There is more than one kind of freedom,“… “Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.”

And also about the fallacy that women in an oppressive patriarchy are granted any kind of real agency:

“I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born.”

“I have failed once again to fulfill the expectations of others, which have become my own.”

“That was one of the things they do. They force you to kill, within yourself.”

A system of perpetually limited freedom, agency, and self determination doesn’t allow for rewards really, at least not for the oppressed demographics. Everyone is a victim of whatever group is in power (i.e. men in a patriarchy). So then you have to start getting into the area of debating who is a “better victim” or “more of a victim,” and those conversations are alwaysss yikesy. I don’t think there is any fair or objective or comfortable way to answer a question like “whose pain, abuse, and/or oppression is most important?” People like to point out that there is always the option not to engage in patriarchal standards, but the consequences for this can be severe. So then that begs the question, is there really an option? And are we willing to blame people for choosing what ever the “not abuse” option is. Its the concept that’s at the heart of coercion: taking away someone’s choices until they come to believe that the only choice left that isn’t ~terrible~ is the thing that they want.

I can ~kind of~ see where people are coming from when they make the argument that Sansa and women like her are “rewarded in universe.” Sansa does receive a lot of praise in the narrative from other characters for being good at traditionally feminine skills. Definitely far more by a large margin than characters like Brienne and Arya, who don’t comply with prescribed gender roles. The skills Sansa has are more socially acceptable in universe of course; they are much more valuable in terms of cultural currency, and make her much more marketable in a society where women are essentially chattel to be sold or traded. But as I have kind of talked about before, comparing the treatment different types of women are subjected to in a patriarchal society and how it affects them just isn’t that cut and dry. Traditionally feminine women are supposed to be the most “rewarded” group of women, while women who do not act “how a woman should” are meant to be the most disadvantaged or disenfranchised group. But when you really examine the POV’s of women like Cersei and Sansa vs. women like Brienne and Arya, you can see if affects them mentally in very different ways.

Cersei, who outwardly seems to be the epitome of a Good Westerosi Woman in her appearance and her actions, and has the ultimate “reward” (being the Freaking Queen), seems to have the most veraciously negative mentality about her gender and her role in society.

Cersei sniffed. “I should have been born a man. I would have no need of any of you then. None of this would have been allowed to happen. How could Jaime let himself be captured by that boy? And Father, I trusted in him, fool that I am, but where is he now that he’s wanted? What is he doing?”— ACoK

“We were so much alike, I could never understand why they treated us so differently. Jaime learned to fight with sword and lance and mace, while I was taught to smile and sing and please. He was heir to Casterly Rock, while I was to be sold to some stranger like a horse, to be ridden whenever my new owner liked, beaten whenever he liked, and cast aside in time for a younger filly. Jaime’s lot was to be glory and power, while mine was birth and moonblood.”— ACoK

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

Cersei learned how to perpetuate and perform femininity in a socially acceptable way, despite her constant frustration and contempt for its constraints. But it has left her in a state of basically complete self loathing; she is bitter and angry and just so incredibly unhappy.

Brienne on the other hand, couldn’t look or act less like Cersei. She is one of the most “masculine” female characters in appearance and stereotypical behavior. and yes, Brienne does have insecurities from the criticisms and mockery she receives.

Lady Stark had been kind to her, but most women were just as cruel as men. She could not have said which she found most hurtful, the pretty girls with their waspish tongues and brittle laughter or the cold-eyed ladies who hid their disdain behind a mask of courtesy. — ACoK

There is not question she is judged and degraded and treated atrociously. BUT, she doesn’t seem to suffer from the same resentment, self loathing and all consuming anger that Cersei does. She wants to be a knight, but she never tries to pass as a man nor wishes she had been born male. Yes, she recognizes and resents the limitations placed on her because of her gender, but she also actually expresses respect for women as well:

“No, but you have courage. Not a battle courage perhaps but… I don’t know… a kind of woman’s courage.”— ACoK

“[L]adies die in childbed. No one sings songs about them.” — ACoK

So that kind of shows how even The Best Women aren’t really “rewarded” in a system like Westeros’s. There is nothing rewarding about being pigeon holed and forced into a teeny tiny box. There is nothing rewarding about constantly being at the mercy of rigid expectations based on conformity and stereotypes and prescribed gender roles. And there is definitely nothing rewarding about being taught to hate yourself based on your gender.  

Which also relates to your next point about how Sansa’s brand traditional femininity can be a mark against her on a meta level; and how she, and other characters like her, get called “weak” or “boring” or “stupid” due to their “girly-girl” status… This is essentially one of the reasons why people argue that the rise of the Warrior Woman Character can, at times (NOT ALWAYS), be sort of a double edged sword. 

On the one hand it has been amazing for feminism. Its breaking the mold, its fighting the idea that there is only one way to be a Good Woman, its showing that there is no wrong way to be a woman. These types of characters show that sword fighting can be just as feminine as sewing. In fact these characters represent the idea that there really is no such thing as the distinction between “feminine activities” and “masculine activities.” Things do not have a gender. Activities do not have a gender. They can’t actually be male or female. They are actually neutral; their existence or practice doesn’t exclusively depend solely on one gender or the other. There is no difference between sword fighting and dancing; they are both just physical activities people can take part in. There is no difference between pants and dresses; they are both just clothes, pieces of material we use to cover our bodies. The only reason we think of them as masculine or feminine, the only reason we consider them to be gender coded AT ALL, is because we are taught to do so. And the Warrior Woman character defies these stereotypes.

But these types of characters can also be ~warped~ to help perpetuate patriarchal norms just as much as classically feminine characters can, because the fucking patriarchy ruins everything. (Seriously though, it is the reason we can’t have nice things.) That’s one of the hallmarks of a patriarchy, it appropriates something that is supposed to be empowering for disenfranchised or exploited groups and ~twists it~ to their own benefit. The Handmaids Tale has another great example of this with The Republic of Gilead’s perversion of the bible verse Matthew 5:5, “blessed are the meek.” Instead of citing the entire phrase, as the narrator Offred points out, “they never mention the part where ‘the meek will inherit the earth’.” The quotation of scripture is manipulated to support the idea that the Handmaid’s should be submissive,  that it is their duty to acquiesce to their subservient role in society.

So as a result, instead of defying gender coded distinctions, these types of females can be applauded as the “superior�� type of female character because they are skilled in areas that are “traditionally masculine.” A woman who is good at sword fighting is “more badass” than a woman who is good at sewing, because being able to sword fight is a more valuable skill than being able to sew. And of course it is, its a traditionally masculine skill; the Bro-er the Better. Then all the big time, toxic patriarchal shit rears its ugly asshole head with the concept that anything feminine or “girly” is bad and that anything masculine or “manly” is good. That femininity is weakness and stupidity while masculinity is superiority and strength; that masculinity is preferential while femininity is, at best, acceptable.

This type of thinking makes the Warrior Woman Character, who is good at combat and sword fighting, stronger and more admirable, and a superior role role model, and just all around Better than the Girly Girl Character who likes sewing and dancing. It takes beautiful, strong, dynamic female characters of both varieties and polarizes them in a really annoying and unnecessary way. It makes a plot/arc/storyline where a female character learns to fight or some other traditionally masculine skill an “upgrade” and a hero story, while a plot/arc/storyline where a female character does something more traditionally feminine is a “down grade” or a ~chick flick~ and not to be taken as seriously. It makes female characters who have many different skills (both traditionally feminine and masculine) into Mary Sue’s and says “she must be bad at something! she must have glaring flaws and obvious weaknesses!” or else she “isn’t believable, isn’t relatable, and isn’t at all lovable.” 

It dictates that characters like Sansa Stark must be weak and stupid, because they are skilled at sewing and not sword fighting and they have to rely on intuition and their intellect instead of fighting and their physicality to protect themselves.

And I mean, honestly… It 👏  Is 👏  So 👏  STUPID! 👏