A feminist take on Game of Thrones

[DJLippy]

makemorenoise.libsyn.com/suffragette-city-radio-seven-metoo-and-game-of-thrones

Podcast with a discussion of game of thrones. (24 minutes in)

Discussing rape and danerys and the Mad Queen trope. Can men write female charecters? Are the best charecters (ie Arya) just basically men with tits? Did we ignore Daenerys psychopathy because she was a woman?

Love to hear some feminist takes

makemorenoise.libsyn.com/suffragette-city-radio-seven-metoo-and-game-of-thrones

Clicky link

Sadly not :(

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.

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- as discussed on our fabulous podcast. Sorry for the shameless self promotion but we are grass roots publication and we need all the support we can get. Mumsnet users will LOVE it - they should all subscribe! 😛

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.

I love both those charecters but I feel like they are both a bit - men with tits. Its noteworthy that the best female charecters are women doing male roles (assassin/knight)

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 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 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...

Discussion on the podcast with myself and co-host about the difference between books and TV show as we are both massive geeks and have read the books.

I feel like I have to turn off my feminist brain when I read fantasy, it's a proper guilty pleasure. If you could reccomend any good (from a female perspective) fantasy I'd LOVE some reccomendations

Do I think that any man could write a good female character, yes

I give you Granny Weatherwax

I definitely think that Terry Pratchett was born in the wrong body. He is one of the best male writers of female charecters.

I don't think we should dismiss women who don't conform to society's standards of femininity as men with tits.

Its noteworthy that the best female charecters are women doing male roles (assassin/knight)

I don't think this is true, for me anyway. I thought the best female characters were Cersei, Olenna Tyrell, and, by the end, Sansa. They specifically play on feminine elements of themselves to secure power. Cersei especially.

I think 'men with tits' means more than women not conforming to femininity: it's about whether the writer created what was actually a male character, just with a female name, because the writer couldn't really conceptualise a woman in that situation.

You see the reverse in some slash fiction where male characters are in essence women in the way they think and respond, and aren't believable as males, despite the described physique and performance of masculinity. It isn't that they're men stepping outside stereotypical roles, which would be so much more interesting to read.

Is a “man with tits” a female-bodied person with a man’s brain and a man’s personality? Is that how we’re doing feminism now? I didn’t get the memo on that, and it sounds pretty similar to gender theory ladybrain bullshit to me.
One thing that I loved about GoT was the range of strong women portrayed. Arya, Sansa, Cersei, Margaery, Brienne, Olenna, Daenerys, Yara, Osha, Melisandre, Ygritte... all very different. Not all admirable. Not all attractive. Not all likeable. Not all right or brave all of the time.

Sansa had a fantastic character arc. She went from slappable brat to Boudicca without the transition ever feeling forced.

Is a “man with tits” a female-bodied person with a man’s brain and a man’s personality? Is that how we’re doing feminism now? I didn’t get the memo on that, and it sounds pretty similar to gender theory ladybrain bullshit to me.
One thing that I loved about GoT was the range of strong women portrayed. Arya, Sansa, Cersei, Margaery, Brienne, Olenna, Daenerys, Yara, Osha, Melisandre, Ygritte... all very different. Not all admirable. Not all attractive. Not all likeable. Not all right or brave all of the time.

This 100%! I think there were many excellently written women.

I need to watch the series again from the start, and I haven't read the books, but I know Martin has been specifically praised for being able to "write women well" and has patted himself on the back over it too. I can see the "men with tits" point, but I think it's symptomatic of how we see progress for women in general under patriarchy - successful women, in general, are men with tits (in many cases, literally!) We look at women doing women's thing and teach them to aspire to do what men are doing - it never occurs to us to elevate the status of what they're already doing! So "strong women" become assassins and knights, while pretty Sansa who wanted to wear dresses and marry a prince gets raped and sold. There's also a healthy dose of women using sex to manipulate men, and I was very at the big group of men sitting around at the end talking about rebuilding the brothels as top priority.

I did really enjoy the series though and, for all I've just said, I really liked Arya, Brienne, and Sansa (not so much Daenarys). I hadn't come to feminism at all, let alone radical feminism, when I started watching it though, so wasn't watching it with that eye.

successful women, in general, are men with tits

By this I mean that we view women in society as being successful if they exhibit the traits we value in men, or succeed in something that we would celebrate men succeeding in.

My feminist take - Tyrion was a misogynist and the fact that he is portrayed as a one of the more heroic characters is worrying and an indicator of how blind we are to misogyny. He strangled his lover. But its ok as it was a crime of passion. Strangulation is such a common, and often under prioritised, form of violence against women. Many women who end up dead reported incidents of strangulation before their death.

I think 'men with tits' means more than women not conforming to femininity: it's about whether the writer created what was actually a male character, just with a female name, because the writer couldn't really conceptualise a woman in that situation.

This is what I mean by men with tits. It's a criticism of the writer, not a comment on the characters. They wanted to write a "strong woman", didn't know how to, so wrote a man and slapped on some female markers. Alternatively "Oh I should have some more female characters in here, which ones can I swap over..." Nothing to do with ladybrain bullshit.

There's no way Sansa (to take just one example) is a man with tits. Her formative experiences included fear of menstruation, sexualised assault, forced child marriage, threatened gang rape, abusive marriage, marital rape...you get the picture. You could indeed argue it as deeply misogynistic, but those are experiences that women tragically still have today. She is a survivor, who has fought to rebuild herself, and be in a position of power. As a woman.

But there was only one female assassin, and one female knight, and the latter is nearly raped. Cersei was, I think, considered by most people to be a strong woman, even if she did use sex to manipulate men. It was one of the few tools at her disposal. Catelyn, Olenna, and Margaery, amongst others, were also strong women who weren't written in a stereotypically male manner.

The Pratchett comparison is an interesting one. Most of his female characters (Granny Weatherwax, Tiffany, Polly, Agua etc) are strong, brave, kick ass women without having any masculine traits whatsoever.