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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

A feminist take on Game of Thrones

60 replies

DJLippy · 09/06/2019 17:32

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

OP posts:
FingonTheValiant · 09/06/2019 21:52

No, and I wouldn't apply the term to Sansa, Cersei, Margaery etc. Although I have other issues with things that were done to their characters.

I just consider Brienne and Arya (my personal favourite characters) to be suspect in this area.

FingonTheValiant · 09/06/2019 21:54

Pratchett is an amazing writer of female characters. Just brilliant.

LaurieFairyCake · 09/06/2019 22:00

Tyrion kills Shae in self defence, she's trying to kill him ?

nocoolnamesleft · 09/06/2019 22:03

Tyrion kills Shae in self defence, she's trying to kill him ?

No, he kills her because he finds his lover in his father's bed, and would sooner she was dead than fucking his dad. Making absolutely no allowance for the minor detail that her choice was probably either Tywin's bed, or a grave.

CathScarlett · 09/06/2019 22:13

Tyrion kills Shae in self defence, she's trying to kill him?

No, he kills her because he finds his lover in his father's bed, and would sooner she was dead than fucking his dad. Making absolutely no allowance for the minor detail that her choice was probably either Tywin's bed, or a grave.

Doesn't he kill her out of self defence in the show and because of jealousy in the book? He definitely was misogynistic though.

7Days · 09/06/2019 22:18

Robin Hobb is a brilliant fantasy writer from a feminist POV, a brilliant writer full stop.
GOT came after for me and I couldnt hack it at all. Same with others, she's ruined me.

LaurieFairyCake · 09/06/2019 22:19

She grabs a knife to kill him when he comes in the room. They then struggle over the knife and she becomes even more committed to killing him. It's then clear they are both trying to kill each other.

My memory is that it's absolutely horrible but that she is trying to kill him.

LaurieFairyCake · 09/06/2019 22:20

By the way I'm not defending him in any way just saying my memory of it is different Grin

There are so many misogynistic scenes this one just didn't stand out amongst all the others

TinklyLittleLaugh · 09/06/2019 23:50

7Days. I’ve only read a couple of Robin Hobb’s Fitz books but they didn’t strike me as particularly feminist. The main characters are male, the female characters are just there as the love interest and the society is traditionally misogynistic. Am I missing something?

SaskiaRembrandt · 10/06/2019 06:41

I see other posters have picked up on this, but 'men with tits' sounds like something straight out Gender Roles 101. It really does imply there are female and male forms of behaviour.

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.

Because female characters need to be written as women rather than as individuals with distinct personalities and motivations?

visca · 10/06/2019 07:12

A key plotline in the first book is a 13-year-old falling in love with her rapist

Amazingly, the show managed to be even more misogynistic than that...

BertrandRussell · 10/06/2019 07:17

I do wish Marion Zimmer Bradley hadn’t turned out to be such an appalling human being and had been born a few years later.....

origamiunicorn · 10/06/2019 07:25

To those saying they stopped becauy of the treatment of women...it was fantasy, based on medieval England so of course women were treated fairly badly. Would you not watch a programme/ film based on Medieval England, because of the portrayal of women? It's real, it happened, let's not sugar coat over it, it's important we know it happened to learn from it.

origamiunicorn · 10/06/2019 07:25

Because*

BertrandRussell · 10/06/2019 08:26

“It's real, it happened, let's not sugar coat over it,“

Let’s not get our rocks off over it either.

visca · 10/06/2019 08:34

Medieval England was full of men casually revealing their full backstory and ambitions while ordering a pair of prostitutes to play with each other's arses...nothing to do with the desires of a modern TV audience then?

BertrandRussell · 10/06/2019 08:40

Actually the “but it’s historically accurate” people piss me off much more than the honest “It’s absolutely fantastic- I love all the sex and violence and dragons. Fantastic stories with added soft porn-what’s not to like?” fans!

lululatetotheparty · 10/06/2019 12:10

I think we would be fair to say that to criticise a writer for writing women 'badly' then it must be clear from the writing that the female characters (although of course the male characters too..) are actually written badly.. whatever 'badly' would mean e.g. one-dimensional etc. However in GOT (books and the series) there are a huge number of female characters who seem extraordinarily diverse and are engaging with the power structures the writer has set up in a variety of ways. I am also very uncomfortable with the 'men with tits' description.

BeardofZeus · 10/06/2019 12:25

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

Apparently there is a theory that Tyrion will end up the villain in ASOIAF due to his actions/nature and at this point in time, due to the nature of his narrative (his wit and perception etc) the audience side with him at the moment, and D&D took the wrong end of his character to run with ... after all, in the show he doesn’t become a bitter and twisted repetitive (“and moon boy for all i know”) sob!

I think there are a number of strong female characters, weak female characters- I think it is wrong to assert that Brienne and Arya are “men with tits”. Briennes POV chapters talk about how she suffered from being different from other women, that her height and strength have been something she has had to accept and work with - to the detriment of many things.. these are all things a woman can relate to (i work in a 90% male dominated physical environment and the desire to be STRONG to compete but also be seen as a woman is something i relate to).

Arya is developed well - many chapters talk about how she and sansa have a fractious sibling relationship due to arya’s inability to “act a lady” and her tomboy nature is well established, her love of Jon etc. Her becoming an assassin is an interesting opposition to what sansa does - she uses weapons as her weapons, sansa uses words - who were their tutors at the start? For Arya syrio forel and for sansa cersei!

I think any adaption from literature to screen suffers from simplification of many many pages of insight into characters ... as potentially the above shows

CantspellWontspell · 10/06/2019 14:39

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

I give you Granny Weatherwax

Haha, I had Pratchett in mind when I wrote that. He has some great female characters.

TinklyLittleLaugh · 10/06/2019 14:51

GOT does at least pass the Bechdel test, both the books and the show.

deepwatersolo · 10/06/2019 14:58

As others, I reject that the 'men with tits' concept is a thing. Women come in all kinds of characters, period. And I think GoT has done a good job in depicting a lot of very diverse women who were strong and shaped their own destiny and the world around them in their own ways and were relatable, no matter whether they did good, bad, ambiguous or outright evil stuff. I liked that.

Also, their characters usually weren't all good or all bad. Take Daenerys. I would dispute that she was mad. She just wanted to create this 'better world' by force no matter the human cost. Not so different from historic precedent. I believe Stalin wanted that, too. Was he mad? I don't think so. The Jacobins wanted that. Were they mad? The 'Neocons' and the 'Responsiility to Protect' crowd? To the extent they truly believed setting the Middle East aflame would enable them to build Democracy on its ashes - were they mad?

However, it is telling that people would call Daenerys mad for what she did and planned to do in the end. Looking at historic precedent, I sure wonder whether it takes being a woman to be called mad for such actions.
The other thing is that Jon Snow with his lack of strategic thinking, his lack of embracing power, his impulsivity... would never have been considered for any top job - be it King of the North or King of the 7 kingdoms - had he been a woman.

Redannie118 · 10/06/2019 15:20

This reply has been withdrawn

The OP has privacy concerns, and so we've agreed to take this down now.

deydododatdodontdeydo · 10/06/2019 16:02

Also think the "men with tits" comment is hugely unfair, and pretty sexist to be honest.
Arya and Sansa are a contrast - they're sisters, but one is a "girly girl" who dreams of being a princess and one a "tomboy" who hates all that stuff and wants to fight with the boys. This is in the first episode.
Take take one and ignore the other misses the point.
Both characters are equally valid types of women.

Also, the Robin Hobb book I read - the only notable feminist thing I noticed that the "henchmen" guards, were equally likely to be female and no big deal was made of it.
However the main female character was extremely wet.

picklemepopcorn · 10/06/2019 16:23

There were a lot of significant female minor characters as well. It was a world peopled by both men and women in all sorts of roles and with agency and the capacity to influence events.