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[misstopia]

Bran had been left behind with Jon and the girls and Rickon. But Rickon was only a baby and the girls were only girls ... - Bran, AGOT

As ladies die in childbed. No one sings songs about them. - Brienne, ACOK


Do you think GRRM is interested in telling a story about women?

I've heard (er, read) him muse on telling the story of Robert and Ned and such from pre-AGOT times, and of course the Hedge Knight revolves around male characters. I think he realizes that literary tradition marginalizes women, but ... does he really care? Undoubtedly he loves Aryas, but can an Arya grow up and maintain his interest?

And I mean as a person, not as an object. Because that's no substitute.

Comments

[misstopia.livejournal.com]

This.

Hahah, how's that for an insightful response :P Yeah you summed it up. The reason I ask how much he cares is, well you (and I) love stories about psychology, stories that can do more than just rely on external physical conflicts. But I love an adventure story also (I love a lot of different kinds of stories), and I definitely think the Hedge Knight writing side of GRRM, the inner Bran of GRRM (and myself), does too. And that does translate into this asymmetry.

It just stirs up depths of resentment in me, hahah. I'm guessing that's the inner Arya. It's the kind of thing that makes me really annoyed when Tyrion looks at Sansa and thinks how beautiful she is for being saddened by grief after the Red Wedding, while we get no emotional reaction from her own POV.

I do think he cares. It's just a matter of how much. I'm not necessarily saying he as an individual has to care more than he does. But my question was a way of framing the general issue I guess.

[umihebizanomiko.livejournal.com]

I'm actually kind of okay with it, because the books already sprawl quite a bit just talking about the war, the Wall, the politics, the East, and that they still manage to have as much personal investment in the characters as they do is kind of amazing. If we got any deeper into anyone's brain without some degree of action going on, the books would be twice as long and take so long to finish that GRRM really would pull a Robert Jordan on us.

I'd actually even say that depicting Sansa only from the outside at that time kind of worked for me. She was so determined to keep her grief private that it works for me on a narrative matching the characters level. I did feel a bit deprived of some insight into the relationship between the Starklings, though. It says something that the boys tend to talk about the other boys and the girls tend talk about each other, and they rarely say anything about siblings of the opposite sex. We lost something in not hearing more about Sansa's relationship with Robb. Even Genna got to say her bit about Tywin being her big brother, and she's so minor she's almost not there.

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

We know that Robb didn't care about Sansa enough to even think about trading Jaime for her, even though the advantages of keeping Jaime are not clear.

But yes, I wish we'd gotten more besides Arya-Jon and Sansa-Arya among the Stark sibs.

[umihebizanomiko.livejournal.com]

I'd question that. A lot of Robb's leadership, even him taking the crown, was about expectations (once the Greatjon starts a "King in the North" chant, how on earth do you say no?). I'd be curious to know how much of that was him genuinely not caring about Sansa and how much was him trying to do the manly thing for his men. Childish, yes, but he was all of fifteen. And I'd still like to know what Sansa thinks of him. She clearly never thought to be bitter over not being exchanged for Jaime.

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

Sansa puzzles me, and occasionally rings false as a character, in part because of her lack of feelings over stuff like that. It doesn't seem quite natural for a child, especially not a sheltered and loved child, to be unhurt and unresentful over something like that.

Robb isn't just manly in front of his men, though. It doesn't seem to bug him much in private, even with Catelyn. We're not shown that it bothers him at all.

[umihebizanomiko.livejournal.com]

Okay, point on Robb.

Sansa, though, I think was kind of attached to the more romantic idea that her brother would successfully take the war to King's Landing and save her that way. I totally don't have any hard textual evidence towards this point, so if you can think of anything that indicates what her thoughts are, that'd be awesome. But she doesn't understand politics at this point and she is a rather romantic kid, so.

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that's a reasonable interpretation of Sansa, I guess. She does think stuff like "Robb will come here and win and kill you all!" in ACoK.

[misstopia.livejournal.com]

Sansa has a certain muted reaction to some things, for sure. I don't know if it makes her false as a character, GRRM doesn't seem to gloss over it IMO, though it's not all that overtly engaged either. But there is something kind of distant when she says, for example, "And now the world would forget his name too, Sansa realized; there would be no songs sung for him. That was sad." I mean, she was a little desensitized or somesuch before her traumas.

But what I think GRRM is doing with Sansa and Bran is kind of relating them to kids who intake stories today, and are desensitized to the actualities of the horrors in the stories, but are rather more concerned with the sensationalism in them.

There is a scene where Bran asks a story from Old Nan:

“I could tell you the story about Brandon the Builder,” Old Nan said. “That was always your favorite.”

Thousands and thousands of years ago, Brandon the Builder had raised Winterfell, and some said the Wall. Bran knew the story, but it had never been his favorite. Maybe one of the other Brandons had liked that story. Sometimes Nan would talk to him as if he were her Brandon, the baby she had nursed all those years ago, and sometimes she confused him with his uncle Brandon, who was killed by the Mad King before Bran was even born. She had lived so long, Mother had told him once, that all the Brandon Starks had become one person in her head.

“That’s not my favorite,” he said. “My favorites were the scary ones.” He heard some sort of commotion outside and turned back to the window. Rickon was running across the yard toward the gatehouse, the wolves following him, but the tower faced the wrong way for Bran to see what was happening. He smashed a fist on his thigh in frustration and felt nothing.

“Oh, my sweet summer child,” Old Nan said quietly, “what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.”

“You mean the Others,” Bran said querulously.

“The Others,” Old Nan agreed. “Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.” Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, “So, child. This is the sort of story you like?”

“Well,” Bran said reluctantly, “yes, only . . . ”

Old Nan nodded. “In that darkness, the Others came for the first time,” she said as her needles went click click click. “They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children.”

Her voice had dropped very low, almost to a whisper, and Bran found himself leaning forward to listen.

I think it's about that too. And judging by fandom's reactions to many of the greater losses and atrocities in the series, I can't say it's an entirely inappropriate message, if you'll pardon the preachy overtones of such a statement.

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

I hadn't considered that. Good point, will have to think about it. He's definitely doing something deliberate with Sansa and stories, but I hadn't noticed the same thing with Bran (I always pay more attention to the Stark girls than the boys!).

[misstopia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I realize I didn't really tie that in well. I think Sansa's perception of the world as a song really went that deep. I guess is what I meant. Sometimes my brain makes leaps and ... yeah, carry on.