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A Game of Thrones
I finished A Game of Thrones. I did voice my initial thoughts, but ended up finishing the book. Responses to that post fell into two categories: People either did not remember the rampant misogyny, or did not like the book.
It's been a while since I've read an epic fantasy, and I frankly found this one uncomfortable. A lot of awful things happen in this book. There is gore, and there is a lot of grief from the perspective of every character. But I think that the women characters are treated the worst, by far.
Scenes that stand out for me as awful:
--Daenarys getting her nipples pinched by her brother Vaerys, as he tells her how to use her body as an instrument to win him power.
--Daenarys's wedding night rape.
--The story about Tyrion Lannister accidentally getting married to a whore, as a story of his own disgrace/lack of love from his family (aka MANPAIN).
--Sansa on the ramparts with Joffrey, who's showing her her father's head on a spike and getting the Hound to smack her across the face whenever she says anything remotely defiant. Eventually she says only the things he wants to hear, just feet awake from her father's severed head. I almost could not finish this chapter.
--Dragons suckling from the breasts of Daenarys (HELLO PAIN!)
Martin gets his more unsavory male characters to say misogynistic things, like that women are the weaker sex and don't know how to rule. But I think Martin might believe it himself? Women who do get power are unstable and ineffective (Lysa Arryn, Cersei Lannister).
At one point, I accidentally skipped ahead to the end of Arya's last narrated chapter. From skimming the end of the chapter, I thought that she got scalped/killed. And when I was under the impression that that was what happened, I almost stopped reading the book. Sure, people die, but for me, Arya was the only person who I sympathized with entirely. [Catelyn Stark is a close second, although when she took Tyrion Lannister into custody without any physical proof, I thought she was as stupid as her sister Lysa.]
I found Sansa's inability to get along with Arya unbelievable. The girls have different hobbies! So clearly THEY MUST HATE EACH OTHER. I don't know. Maybe it's just because my close group of girl friends growing up were so different from one another, or something. I don't think women writers ever use this trope? It felt really lazy.
In the same vein was Sansa's refusal to see what an asshole Joffrey was - to not recoil from Cersei Lannister until her father's head was literally cut from his body. I don't know. I guess I have serious issues with Sansa - I really think that she has the potential to become a great character, and maybe she will, but she seemed like such an idiot in this book, and FOR NO REASON!
I can't tell if I'm supposed to feel sympathetic toward Tyrion Lannister, or not. Sure, he's usually pretty funny. But he's also a jerk, IMO. Being funny doesn't make one sympathetic - I know plenty of hilarious assholes who remain...assholes.
Anyway, the books are intricately plotted enough that I am interested in seeing what happens. I've borrowed the other three from my brother-in-law, and will keep reading them. The books are okay, but I don't think they'll ever be favorites? If anyone cares to convince me, feel free.
Of the things I do like, they include: the direwolves, the House of Roses-esque intricacy, the shifting perspectives. The willingness to examine what happens to people after the battle is over - there's not a lot of glorifying of the battle itself, which is a welcome change from most mainstream fantasy novels.
Umm, and I'm also waiting for the gay sex to happen up at the Wall with the Men of the Watch.
I am unspoiled for plot developments/deaths in future books, though so please don't reveal anything!
Probable spoilers for the first book are in the comments.
It's been a while since I've read an epic fantasy, and I frankly found this one uncomfortable. A lot of awful things happen in this book. There is gore, and there is a lot of grief from the perspective of every character. But I think that the women characters are treated the worst, by far.
Scenes that stand out for me as awful:
--Daenarys getting her nipples pinched by her brother Vaerys, as he tells her how to use her body as an instrument to win him power.
--Daenarys's wedding night rape.
--The story about Tyrion Lannister accidentally getting married to a whore, as a story of his own disgrace/lack of love from his family (aka MANPAIN).
--Sansa on the ramparts with Joffrey, who's showing her her father's head on a spike and getting the Hound to smack her across the face whenever she says anything remotely defiant. Eventually she says only the things he wants to hear, just feet awake from her father's severed head. I almost could not finish this chapter.
--Dragons suckling from the breasts of Daenarys (HELLO PAIN!)
Martin gets his more unsavory male characters to say misogynistic things, like that women are the weaker sex and don't know how to rule. But I think Martin might believe it himself? Women who do get power are unstable and ineffective (Lysa Arryn, Cersei Lannister).
At one point, I accidentally skipped ahead to the end of Arya's last narrated chapter. From skimming the end of the chapter, I thought that she got scalped/killed. And when I was under the impression that that was what happened, I almost stopped reading the book. Sure, people die, but for me, Arya was the only person who I sympathized with entirely. [Catelyn Stark is a close second, although when she took Tyrion Lannister into custody without any physical proof, I thought she was as stupid as her sister Lysa.]
I found Sansa's inability to get along with Arya unbelievable. The girls have different hobbies! So clearly THEY MUST HATE EACH OTHER. I don't know. Maybe it's just because my close group of girl friends growing up were so different from one another, or something. I don't think women writers ever use this trope? It felt really lazy.
In the same vein was Sansa's refusal to see what an asshole Joffrey was - to not recoil from Cersei Lannister until her father's head was literally cut from his body. I don't know. I guess I have serious issues with Sansa - I really think that she has the potential to become a great character, and maybe she will, but she seemed like such an idiot in this book, and FOR NO REASON!
I can't tell if I'm supposed to feel sympathetic toward Tyrion Lannister, or not. Sure, he's usually pretty funny. But he's also a jerk, IMO. Being funny doesn't make one sympathetic - I know plenty of hilarious assholes who remain...assholes.
Anyway, the books are intricately plotted enough that I am interested in seeing what happens. I've borrowed the other three from my brother-in-law, and will keep reading them. The books are okay, but I don't think they'll ever be favorites? If anyone cares to convince me, feel free.
Of the things I do like, they include: the direwolves, the House of Roses-esque intricacy, the shifting perspectives. The willingness to examine what happens to people after the battle is over - there's not a lot of glorifying of the battle itself, which is a welcome change from most mainstream fantasy novels.
Umm, and I'm also waiting for the gay sex to happen up at the Wall with the Men of the Watch.
I am unspoiled for plot developments/deaths in future books, though so please don't reveal anything!
Probable spoilers for the first book are in the comments.
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So really, the things Martin does to her seem kind and gentle in comparison.
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With Sansa, I tend to think that Martin views her as silly and needing to grow up, but as sympathetic. Catelyn, IMO is Martin's voice on the problems of patriarchal ideals and his attempt at deconstruction of fantasy ideals of both motherhood and The Lady. Most of fandom, though, seems to want to dismiss her as troublesome and a terrible mother who should have sat on her hands while her son rode off to war surrounded by people who only saw him as a political toy. (Fandom is also good at not noticing that pretty much everytime she says "no, that is a bad idea" and Standard Fantasy Male ignores her...bad things happen.)
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Catelyn as a terrible mother! I might....not look around too much in this fandom.
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... and me ^^ though i didn't have as strong a reaction as you did to the misogyny.
But I think Martin might believe it himself?
I don't think he does, I think he's trying to show something very different, though I also believe he somewhat fail (and both Cersei and Lysa's characterisation especially, are one of the bigger way in which he fails - Cersei especially will only get worse IMHO. Especially as they only have Catelyn as a foil.)
Sansa's characterisation in GoT, and the way she related to Arya (or rather the way she was mainly used as a foil to Arya) is also something I found very frustrating in GoT. Thankfully, IMHO, she improved, at least in being sympathetic (though not exactly in being empowered). BTW Arya and Sansa are both two of my favourite characters.
I believe we are supposed to feel sympathetic to Tyrion. I don't think Martin meant for him to come across as a very big jerk; more as a snarky, kinda anti-heroic guy. I have a couple of big issues with Tyrion (one of which is the MANPAIN thing through the victimisation of Tysha, the other is for a later books) in term of how sympathetic he is meant to be seen as compared to how big a jerk he is, but not as many as you seem to have. At that point of the story he was one of my favourite character.
I'm curious about what you think of Daenarys' journey so far, since she's the one female character who started at the worst point, being treated like a piece of meat by her brother and Ilaryo compared to how she ends up in the finale?
Of the things you said stood out as awful:
Dany's nipple getting twitched and Sansa with Joffrey at the rampart are both, I believe, being written as awful very intentionally, and in a way to use their weakness and victimisation to make us feel sympathetic to them immediately.
I think Dany's wedding night wasn't intended to be awful-awful; or rather that Martin tried to soften the blow of it being a rape as much as possible given the circumstances to make it very dubious consensual sex instead. I'm still not sure how I feel about that.
I don't think he really thought through the dragon suckling on her breasts as painful; though. I think he's going for the symbolism mostly there; and this is a moment of triumph for Daenarys.
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I think the reason I dislike Tyrion so far is because he just kind of drifts around from place to place, and I can never figure out whose side he's on. Is he actually loyal to his family even though they're assholes to him? Does he actually like Jon Stark, or any of the Starks? Rather than piquing my interest, the ambiguity just pisses me off. But we'll see! He was just nice to Sansa in where I'm at in Clash of Kings.
At first, I mostly felt irritated by Daenarys's story because it was so far removed from everyone else, and I didn't CARE what happened to her (just turn back to Arya!). But once she had the dragon dream (or whatever it was) and became empowered, I liked her a lot more.
And I found her wedding night "consent" VERY dubious - she was only 13!
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It's technically possible, but it also felt very obvious to me, and not in a neutral way, but in a vaguely annoying way. I don't think they hate each other, but we never really see much of them getting along, it's hard to feel that they love each other even though they technically probably do. IDK, it did annoy me in a "This was totally written by a man" way.
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The stuff that made your skin crawl did the same to me. Re: Sansa, I'm afraid it gets worse after that horrific chapter. I can barely stand to read her POVs in the second book.
My favorite female characters after book 1 were Arya and Catelyn. Catelyn's my favorite character, period, now (didn't think the Tyrion move was stupid, btw, but there are debates a-plenty about that!).
I just feel like some fanboy, or even fangirl, is likely to justify all the rape and objectification by crying, "But it's REALISTIC!" And that tires and infuriates me and I wish I could succinctly say what's wrong with it. (Other than no, it's not realistic, it's there to titillate.)