George R.R.Martin and the female stereotypes of fantasy
This started out as an answer to Sady Doyle's criticism of A song of Ice and Fire. Since she seems to be deleting posts disagreeing with her, I don't think I'll be bothered writing a comment on her blog at all. The essence of my opinions is that her insight into the book and also into the fantasy-genre seems to be limited.
Her arguments or approach don't really hold up as anything but full of holes and spiteful. Starting out by accusing geeks of their inability to take criticism seems like the beginning of a well known suppression technique more than a just claim. Furthermore, to make her point, she omits lots of female characters with considerably stronger positions than her examples (Asha Greyjoy, Maege Mormont, the wildling women, the sand snakes etc.), as well as the fact that male charcters are projected to just as much hardship as the women.
I wasn't going to get myself riled up over this, however. If Sady Doyle doesn't like my toys, that's fine. Instead of criticizing Doyle further I will try to explain why I love these books despite the rapes, murders and difficulties Martin puts his women through.
A Song of Ice and Fire is very much medieval in it's setting. Martin has not, however left out the brutal parts of history. Taking some of the stereotypes of fantasy and facing them with quite realistic fates, makes this very clear.
Yes - rape is terrible - so is cannibalism, castration and necromancy. Martin isn't trying to depict an ideal world, but rather the horrors of a Dystopia in need of some serious control - or saving if you like.. As a template for his Dystopia Martin uses the racism and sexism-infested medieval Europe. This need not be for nostalgic reasons, but might very well be because of the example it sets. Along with that, he also manages to twist some of the stereotypes of fantasy around and present a more realistic view on what these stereotype women would face if they were to get their wish.
I do not condone rape, and neither I suspect, does Martin. Nor do I particularly like racism, cruelty to animals, torture or cannibalism. However I do see the point of it all being described in Martins books. The world of Westeros is a grim one, and the inhabitants of this world are seriously out of control. Describing decay does not make you a racist, sexist or a violent brute. I see much of Martins world as a comment on the romanticism of high fantasy and the nostalgic desire to revisit medieval times that often occurs in works of fantasy.
For the purpose of argument I will look more closely at three female stereotypes that often occur in fantasy.
The most obvious one has to be Brienne of Tarth - or Brienne the Beauty as she is mockingly called. This female warrior is no confident Xena Warrior Princess or pretty Buffy Summers. She is big-boned, socially awkward and a hopeless romantic at heart. Her deeds and victories are not recognized and she is often ridiculed. If someone shows her a small amount of kindness (like Renly Baratheon or Jaime Lannister) she tends to fall hopelessly in love with them. There is no real place for people like Brienne in the world. That makes her a much more realistic female warrior than the others I mentioned. By using a character like her, Martin has manged to twist the reader's expectation for her character as well as showing us how the fantasy female warrior is quite the unrealistic stereotype. (That's not to say that there weren't female warriors in medieval Europe , but it was considered dishonorable, and they were looked down upon.)
Then you have Sansa Stark.The dutiful daughter of the main character who dreams of becoming a princess.She is presented to the reader as intolerably vain and her arrogance is often taken out on her tomboy sister, Arya. Her prince isn't all that charming, however, and she soon discovers that her role at court will be quite different to what she had hoped.
Her character actually possesses traits that make her the anti-thesis of a good female character. You might go so far as to say she is the bimbo of the piece.Through her time in captivity at court, some of her naivety is replaced by a certain cunning. She is constantly molested and goes from being beaten by Joffrey's guards to falling into the claws of Littlefinger - who possesses a creepy fascination for her. Along the way, she navigates court intrigue by using courtesy as her armor and actually picking up a lesson here and there.
It might seem incredible - but the stereotypical bimbo seems to have a potential at least to become a strong female character. Once again Martin has twisted our expectations and shown us how stereotypes are not to be relied upon.
In Arya Stark we meet the not uncommon stereotype of the tomboy. Various works of high fantasy have them, and they occur in other genres as well. The girl who does not want to do girly things even appear in fairy-tales. Arya shows us in the first book that she loves hunting and swordplay while she loathes sewing, singing end etiquette. She is depicted as a rebel, yet a female protagonist we can believe in.
Then Martin subjects her to the grim truths of his world and she falls far. Though still very capable and still managing, we are unsure how much damage her life has done to her. She escaped being a lady and got to live by the sword, but again Martin has shown us that her way might not have been the best way.
These three characters are only very few of the ones Martin use to twist expectations and display the grim unfairness of his world. I can't for the life of me see how any of these (nor the others for that matter) are used to portray a way women should be treated. If there are readers who get off on reading descriptions of rape or torture, that says much more about the reader than the author. A work of literature will trigger different things with different readers. Creating tabus around rape, however, is not the way to go about speaking up against it. Martin does demonstrate the wrongness of it all, and if you can't see that, it might be an idea to update your skills in literary analysis.
There is much more about the books that I could discuss, and I will. This post, however, is getting long enough. So the rest must be saved for another time :-)
Her arguments or approach don't really hold up as anything but full of holes and spiteful. Starting out by accusing geeks of their inability to take criticism seems like the beginning of a well known suppression technique more than a just claim. Furthermore, to make her point, she omits lots of female characters with considerably stronger positions than her examples (Asha Greyjoy, Maege Mormont, the wildling women, the sand snakes etc.), as well as the fact that male charcters are projected to just as much hardship as the women.
I wasn't going to get myself riled up over this, however. If Sady Doyle doesn't like my toys, that's fine. Instead of criticizing Doyle further I will try to explain why I love these books despite the rapes, murders and difficulties Martin puts his women through.
A Song of Ice and Fire is very much medieval in it's setting. Martin has not, however left out the brutal parts of history. Taking some of the stereotypes of fantasy and facing them with quite realistic fates, makes this very clear.
Yes - rape is terrible - so is cannibalism, castration and necromancy. Martin isn't trying to depict an ideal world, but rather the horrors of a Dystopia in need of some serious control - or saving if you like.. As a template for his Dystopia Martin uses the racism and sexism-infested medieval Europe. This need not be for nostalgic reasons, but might very well be because of the example it sets. Along with that, he also manages to twist some of the stereotypes of fantasy around and present a more realistic view on what these stereotype women would face if they were to get their wish.
I do not condone rape, and neither I suspect, does Martin. Nor do I particularly like racism, cruelty to animals, torture or cannibalism. However I do see the point of it all being described in Martins books. The world of Westeros is a grim one, and the inhabitants of this world are seriously out of control. Describing decay does not make you a racist, sexist or a violent brute. I see much of Martins world as a comment on the romanticism of high fantasy and the nostalgic desire to revisit medieval times that often occurs in works of fantasy.
For the purpose of argument I will look more closely at three female stereotypes that often occur in fantasy.
The most obvious one has to be Brienne of Tarth - or Brienne the Beauty as she is mockingly called. This female warrior is no confident Xena Warrior Princess or pretty Buffy Summers. She is big-boned, socially awkward and a hopeless romantic at heart. Her deeds and victories are not recognized and she is often ridiculed. If someone shows her a small amount of kindness (like Renly Baratheon or Jaime Lannister) she tends to fall hopelessly in love with them. There is no real place for people like Brienne in the world. That makes her a much more realistic female warrior than the others I mentioned. By using a character like her, Martin has manged to twist the reader's expectation for her character as well as showing us how the fantasy female warrior is quite the unrealistic stereotype. (That's not to say that there weren't female warriors in medieval Europe , but it was considered dishonorable, and they were looked down upon.)
Then you have Sansa Stark.The dutiful daughter of the main character who dreams of becoming a princess.She is presented to the reader as intolerably vain and her arrogance is often taken out on her tomboy sister, Arya. Her prince isn't all that charming, however, and she soon discovers that her role at court will be quite different to what she had hoped.
Her character actually possesses traits that make her the anti-thesis of a good female character. You might go so far as to say she is the bimbo of the piece.Through her time in captivity at court, some of her naivety is replaced by a certain cunning. She is constantly molested and goes from being beaten by Joffrey's guards to falling into the claws of Littlefinger - who possesses a creepy fascination for her. Along the way, she navigates court intrigue by using courtesy as her armor and actually picking up a lesson here and there.
It might seem incredible - but the stereotypical bimbo seems to have a potential at least to become a strong female character. Once again Martin has twisted our expectations and shown us how stereotypes are not to be relied upon.
In Arya Stark we meet the not uncommon stereotype of the tomboy. Various works of high fantasy have them, and they occur in other genres as well. The girl who does not want to do girly things even appear in fairy-tales. Arya shows us in the first book that she loves hunting and swordplay while she loathes sewing, singing end etiquette. She is depicted as a rebel, yet a female protagonist we can believe in.
Then Martin subjects her to the grim truths of his world and she falls far. Though still very capable and still managing, we are unsure how much damage her life has done to her. She escaped being a lady and got to live by the sword, but again Martin has shown us that her way might not have been the best way.
These three characters are only very few of the ones Martin use to twist expectations and display the grim unfairness of his world. I can't for the life of me see how any of these (nor the others for that matter) are used to portray a way women should be treated. If there are readers who get off on reading descriptions of rape or torture, that says much more about the reader than the author. A work of literature will trigger different things with different readers. Creating tabus around rape, however, is not the way to go about speaking up against it. Martin does demonstrate the wrongness of it all, and if you can't see that, it might be an idea to update your skills in literary analysis.
There is much more about the books that I could discuss, and I will. This post, however, is getting long enough. So the rest must be saved for another time :-)
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