misstopia

Appropriated from: How To Tell If Your Pain is ~Manpain~ by walkingshadow (with permission). Don't know what manpain is? You should.



"I am Darkstar" vs "I am of the night" -- discuss amongst yourselves!

[LJ | DW]

So I'm doing my meta post on GRRM's Dying of the Light and I found a quote or few that helps me rephrase this women-and-GRRM questionthing I seem to keep dancing around:

and that's a big part of your problem, isn't it? On High Kavalaan it's not man and woman. No, it's man and man and maybe woman, but even then she's not so terribly important

She lay there, alive only by a quirk of fortune. Myrik Braith would not have cared had she died, nor would the others. Yet Garse would have granted the man who did this thing a clean and decent dying, would have given him the kiss of shared honor before taking his small life. I ... I care for Garse. Yet I could not let it be, t'Larien, not when Gwen lay so ... so still, and disregarded. I could not let it be.

These stories - these were the only accounts of ancient days that I was given to work with.

Maybe I couldn't kill anyone. But, you know, I feel as if I could sometimes. And right now, Dirk, I would very much like to have a gun.

Emphases mine. OKAY, so I think GRRM knows that there is a certain disregarding of women in the stories and traditions that he draws from, and I think I sense that within ASOIAF itself, so that is why I hesitate to say that he is simply ignorant. There are things he is ignorant of, but while those things are definitely problems (I doubt he thought long about the lesbian fanservice thing, for example), there are some things I feel he knows are problems, and incorporates into his story because they're problems, because that is the way stories have been always told and this enables some kind of indictment. The question is, does this intentionality equal satisfactory reading? If not, is it because the intentionality isn't clear enough, or because it doesn't do enough in terms of controlling the flow of the story? Or is it simply that saying "I'm sorry women have had it hard" will never be as pleasing as saying "Here, women, pull up a chair at the table and have some pie" (or as the case may be, "Here, women, take the gun with your name on it and make a go of it") ... ?

THERE, I think I said it! Hahah, even if you have nothing new to say about this now-tired topic, at least be glad for me that I found a satisfactory way to get my thinky thought out. :D

_{[DW | LJ]}

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.

Preview:


( 30 House Martell related icons )

Personally I like #16.

Preview:


( 30 House Tyrell related icons )

Other than Tomasz Jedruszek, there aren't that many awesome Tyrell pictures out there. Someone should remedy that.

*Ahem* World's first Garlan Tyrell icon?

So as I've complained before, the lack of close-up lasting female-female cooperative relationships in ASOIAF bothers me, but with the footnote that I think GRRM does this on purpose to sympathize its absence and make us crave it more (IE, rooting for Sansa and Arya to make up and be friends). The fact remains though that the dynamics of the genre (and even beyond the SFF genre, in literature/moves/stories in general) makes what he's done particular and pointed -- aka, significantly featuring female companionship in a positive/rooting/sympathetic light in stories ostensibly intended for a mixed gender audience is pretty damn rare, huh?

( Brevity and organization are overrated )

[Poll #1245579]

Okay, so I'm a little silly, and I was thinking about ASOIAF and Greek(/Roman) mythology, trying to match people up, because this is the silly kind of thing I think about.

Zeus/Jupiter = Robert Baratheon. King, smiter, womanizer.
Hera/Juno = Cersei Lannister. Queen, hard, vindictive.
     Caveat: Hera championed marriage and didn't use sex
Ares/Mars = Jaime Lannister. Rwwaaarr carnage! Boo consequences! I am the hawt!
Apollo = Rhaegar Targaryen. Ideal, learned, righteous warrior.
Demeter/Ceres = Catelyn. Earthy, nurturing, grieving mother.
Persephone/Proserpina = Sansa. Innocent, youthful, captive.
Hermes/Mercury Pan = Tyrion. Cunning, witty, irreverent.
Artemis/Diana = Asha. Warrior, willful, voluntary bachelorette.
     Caveat: Artemis is associated with childbirth and virgins
Nemesis/Invidia = Arya. Vengeful, vengeful, vengeful.
Dionysus/Bacchus = Renly. Theatrical, good-timing, bon vivant. (Kinda weak huh?)
Hades/Pluto = Sandor. Dark, brooding, deathly.

( Blah blah blah ... )

Thoughts?