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'