A feminist take on Game of Thrones

I am biased because I LOVE fantasy (I KNOW but its a guilty pleasure.) When you read a lot of Fantasy Game of Thrones looks pretty progressive. I think lots of the criticism is based on the way it was adapted on screen

Ah interesting. I mainly read my fantasy but didn't read GoT, only watched it, and to me it didn't seem remotely progressive. But unfortunately the show has completely put me off wanting to read it. (I was making my way through Robin Hobb at the time, so it really didn't hold up well).

Of the female characters I loved Brienne and really liked Arya, and but agree that they're a bit men with tits. (On an even geekier note, I always play female rogue with assassin tendencies, so Arya was an obvious hit for me).

Some of the WoT women are well written. Although several are unbelievably irritating...

I felt the whole thing was just a rewrite of patriarchal mythology that asserts that female grief and subsequent rage would “burn the innocent” if given any power.

Men need to be in power because their trauma responses lead to them being controlled, moderate and fair. Women are wild and uncontrolled.

Sansa was a “good girl” because she sought only to destroy the specific men who had wronged her but did not challenge the systems of power and was then allowed to be mummy to those pesky wild Northen men and stop them fighting everyone Queen in the North.

Do I think that any man could write a good female character, yes. Can R.R Martin and his rape/castration fetishes - nope.

I think a lot of male viewers ignored the strong signs of Daenarys’ psychopathy because she was a pretty little blonde lady - I couldn’t believe it when people were arguing it came out of nowhere. What show were they watching?

I think there is something to be said about having villainous women, and going into the final season there were 3 queens and 1 king in play and by the end 3 queens and 1 king.

I’m doing a re-watch now it’s all out and whilst I didn’t see it at the time Dany was definitely capable of tyranny. In fact the wheels fall off for her anytime she loses a strong paternalistic advisor. She started setting fire to the nobles in Mereen once she lost Barristan Selmy, and again she loses Jorah the explorer and a few episodes later torches a city.

However two of my favourite characters Brienne and Sansa stand out for me. Sansa who I could take or leave early on has one of the best arcs in the show hands down.

Well at the risk of sounding like a total bore, I stopped watching Got at season 4 ish because I couldn't stand all the sexual violence and disgusting treatment of female characters. Also I found the majority of characters unlikable.

I love fantasy, and as a genre it can be problematic from a feminist perspective, but for me GoT was just a whole other level of unnecessary sex, rape and violence.

But most of my friends think I'm being ridiculous.