In the Shadow of the Status Quo--Fantasy literature and conservativism

[SeanF]

4 hours ago, Lyanna Stark said:

Altherion has the right of it. Cersei works as a mouthpiece for feminist critique within the story. However, she is not a feminist nor is she actually making a feminist statement as such. She is providing a problem description. In this section from Clash (and sorry Darth Richard, she does make a speech ) she is talking about herself only, but of course, as readers, we can see that this is true of Westerosi women in general, too.

A feminist statement would be if she went on to say something like "and this is why Dornish law on inheritance is far superior!". But she does not. She makes no feminist statement.

In fact, Cersei does the opposite, as she uses and tries hard to emulate the extremely patriarchal methods of Tywin. She wants to be the next Tywin, and is openly scornful and rejects anything "tainted" by femininity in this regard. She sees herself as the only woman who can emulate masculine values correctly, and disdains and fears all other women. In this, Cersei is a picture perfect, if tragic, example of internalised sexism at work.

Interestingly, none of the other female POV characters, not even Brienne, is interested in emulating masculinity in this negative fashion as Cersei does. Even Arya, Brienne and Asha, who might seem fairly tomboyish have more positive interactions with other women, and don't see themselves as the unique snowflake woman who is more manly than other men, and is therefor more fit to rule.

I don't take Cersei's comment entirely at face value.  Her father left her in charge of Lannister interests in Kings Landing for 15 years (Lancel reports to her, not Tywin) and only appointed Tyrion as Hand, after Ned Stark was executed, and Barristan Selmy dismissed.  Cersei did have a very important political role to play.  Of course, her marriage to Robert was a disaster.

One thing about Brienne that is unusual for her class is that she has no interest at all in exercising power.  Being the heir to Tarth makes her one of the most important people in Westeros, but she just wants to be a knight.  She's like Jaime in that respect.

 

[SeanF]

50 minutes ago, Andorion said:

I agree. The position of Queen has no inherent power in itself. The specific queen in question may with what resources are available to her seek to gain some power, but by the very nature of Westeros such power is informal and on a lower key than the power of the King or even that of a Lord Paramount

In fact it can be argued that apart from Dornish exceptionalism the only two women to have complete autonomy in the history of Westeros were the two sisters of Aegon the Conqueror. 

I would have loved a story about Visenya. She slashed open Aegon's cheek in the presence of his guards to prove the necessity of a dedicated Kingsguard. Utter badass. 

I don't think we know enough about the position of Queen of Westeros, to be able to say what political power she has. In real life, Empresses of Byzantium, and Queens of England had their own courts, lands, revenues and coronation ceremonies, which made them significant political players.  They were expected to govern in the absence of their husbands, and were frequently required to negotiate treaties. And, if their husbands died, leaving an infant heir, then they ruled as Regents. I can't say whether a Queen of Westeros has such authority.

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, Jo498 said:

As far as I recall there is ONE occasion when Cersei is hit by Robert (after behaving in a very bitchy and offensive manner, obviously denying him respect and authority). Their conjugal couplings are described by Cersei as Robert usually being too drunk to get it up not as rapes. Otherwise it would be somewhat strange that there was no child by Robert among the siblings. Robert might have been a bumbling boor but it's not that he was not suffering in that marriage. But we should also not forget that there is a successful and lovable arranged marriage described between Ned and Cat, so the book is not quite as cartoonish.

From a modern perspective the most creepy thing is probably still Dany-Drogo despite the latters unexpected tenderness in the wedding night (grossly distorted by the show as rape).

But to generalize the point: Choices we take as self-evident and unalienable today obviously did not exist for most people in human history (and they are not up to choice for many millions today, we are very quick to generalize from Western societies).

It's not only the choice of spouse. In the West there was usually more freedom about that than for the choice of profession. So if we see no choice (or very restricted, another feature of the real middle ages was that you could "escape" almost anything forced upon you by deciding to become a monk/nun!) in many things where it is for us now very important to have one as a mark for certain miserability we have to deplore not only the fate of nobility brides in arranged marriages but of almost everybody in most of human history... and it seems to me that this would be quite a distortion.

 

IIRC, he did hit her more than once.  I wouldn't care to say which of them behaved worse to the other.

WRT arranged marriages, assuming Westeros mirrors real life, most aristocrats and royals would expect their parents to arrange marriages to people of equal social standing, and see nothing wrong with it.  In all likelihood, Tywin thought he could do no better by his daughter than to marry her to the King.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

7 hours ago, karaddin said:

On the Cersei and feminism thing, I really think that a large part of confusion there is coming from a conflation of 'feminist character' and 'feminist outcome'.  Cersei herself is most definitely not a feminist character, however the outcome of a depiction like hers can definitely be so, and in some cases I suspect will be much more impactful specifically because she is not a feminist character which would cause some people to automatically switch off.

 

I know we've had this conversation before Scot, you know better than this.  Privilege in this context is a word that was chosen, and perhaps was not the best choice of word, to describe a series of advantages that someone is bestowed due to a particular characteristic.  Many of these advantages, I'd probably say most, are not zero sum and the way to fix them is not to tear down those who already have them, but to lift up those who do not.  There are others which are zero sum in some sense, if you currently have an unfair advantage in hiring practices for example, then everyone getting lifted up to that tier will eliminate your advantage, but that's still an oversimplification because the focus is still on giving the opportunities to others, not taking yours away.  Having your words respected in a workplace setting based on their merits, rather than dismissed due to your gender, is an element of male privilege and can be eliminated by having everyone's words taken at their merit. This would also reduce increased access to promotion opportunities however, which will be an actual loss where the first component was not.  Its complicated and there is an awful lot that goes into this, but to claim that privilege is a dirty word and perhaps imply that its an insult to those who have it? You're better than that.

When privilege is pointed out in a conversation its asking you to accept that your experiences are coloured by the privileges that you posses and accept that others may have worse experiences than you do, so maybe try listening to them instead of asserting your experience as universal. You can choose to interpret that as being told to stfu, or you can see that it's asserting a diversity of experience which no single individual can speak to the entirety of.  Accepting your privileges doesn't mean you have nothing of value to say, it means you'll analyse what you are saying and your experiences for areas where you might be blind to something that others experience. And that is one of the most insidious things about privilege, it normally functions in a way that blinds you to its presence.

 

On depiction of a social reform movement being led by a noble, I thought this was done very well by Dan Abraham in Dagger and Coin and was a big part of his very subtle subversion that many seemed to miss. We saw this from the point of view of the conservative traditionalist who was opposing the reform, and he was played as a likeable sympathetic character for the most part.

 

On queer interpretations of friendship, that's a hard one because its such a spectrum that bounces around. For example in Frodo/Sam even when the person with that reading is well intentioned, I feel like that entire read of the characters is predicated upon modern somewhat homophobic aversion to genuine but non-romantic intimacy in male-male friendships. At the extremes (which is obviously based on how I see it, as a queer woman desperate for more representation) you have homophobic readings of characters as queer to decry them and at the far end you have dogmatic rejection of queer interpretations of characters that have very clear subtext, and in many cases more than subtext. The former I'd associate more with conservative christian homophobia and the latter with nerd guys online. Yes there are also over zealous queer individuals who draw rather long bows in looking for queer subtext, but that is seeking for things to make them happy in themselves and I find it much less harmful even when the particular case is misguided. And then you've got the queerbaiting which complicates things, both the "we never actually go there" style and the "we'll bury the gay immediately after they have sex" style.

Okay.

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

 

Generally, because marriages in Westeros strongly favor the male. It's interesting that one of the biggest benefits of the strong church in Medieval Europe was one for women as, say what you will about the Catholic church, but they clamped down HARD on forced marriages. There's even a lot of things inside the Catholic ceremony you'd don't think about like "anyone here object", "who gives away the bride", why the women gets asked to make sure it's all on the level.

 

That was certainly the principle, but  the kidnap and forcible marriage of heiresses was a real risk in many societies, despite being illegal, as was the financial and sexual exploitation of wealthy orphans.

 

[TrackerNeil]

7 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

OK, dumb question, what exactly is queerbaiting?

The paper explains, but but if you need something more...

[Lyanna Stark]

56 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I don't take Cersei's comment entirely at face value.  Her father left her in charge of Lannister interests in Kings Landing for 15 years (Lancel reports to her, not Tywin) and only appointed Tyrion as Hand, after Ned Stark was executed, and Barristan Selmy dismissed.  Cersei did have a very important political role to play.  Of course, her marriage to Robert was a disaster.

 

Bolded. She only had that power because her father allowed it, and gave it to her, on account of being the House Patriarch. So again, you have power gained by women, that is derived directly from men. Or in case of mistresses etc, indirectly from men. Sure thing, there are mistresses etc. that could potentially have effected the outcome of various decisions, but that also depends on the King in question. Was Maegor the Cruel inspired to legislate based on the suggestions on his mistresses? Or his wife? Was Aegon the Unworthy? Or Aerys II? Regardless, Dany in this way represents a paradigm change should she ever get the throne. A woman ruling in her own right has not happened before, ever. If this actually happens, I then ASOIAF will in some ways shift towards being a more progressive story than it otherwise would, at least in this regard.

 

40 minutes ago, SeanF said:

IIRC, he did hit her more than once.  I wouldn't care to say which of them behaved worse to the other.

WRT arranged marriages, assuming Westeros mirrors real life, most aristocrats and royals would expect their parents to arrange marriages to people of equal social standing, and see nothing wrong with it.  In all likelihood, Tywin thought he could do no better by his daughter than to marry her to the King.

Yes, as horrible as Cersei and Joffrey were, they surely did not deserve the violence they got from Robert.

Tywin may not have seen anything wrong with Robert, true, but he also had no compunction to force Cersei to marry Willas Tyrell against her will. He even says it straight out, that he expects his children to marry so it benefits House Lannister. Which is a bit rich considering he married Joanna Lannister, which didn't bring him any specific benefits apart from that he really fancied her.

[SeanF]

11 minutes ago, Lyanna Stark said:

 

Yes, as horrible as Cersei and Joffrey were, they surely did not deserve the violence they got from Robert.

Tywin may not have seen anything wrong with Robert, true, but he also had no compunction to force Cersei to marry Willas Tyrell against her will. He even says it straight out, that he expects his children to marry so it benefits House Lannister. Which is a bit rich considering he married Joanna Lannister, which didn't bring him any specific benefits apart from that he really fancied her.

Legally, I imagine that Cersei could even have dismissed her father as Hand when he insisted she marry Willas (she's Regent) but practically, it seems all the power is his.

O/T but I'd be interested to see what you think about my comments on Queen Gisel in the September Reads thread.

 

[Darth Richard II]

Isn't there a point early on book 1 where Cersei says she "took care" of any pregnancies that were Roberts?

[Darth Richard II]

Double post 

[SeanF]

6 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Isn't there a point early on book 1 where Cersei says she "took care" of any pregnancies that were Roberts?

She went to a woods witch, who took care of the matter.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Returning to the original article, I have written the first of what is likely to be a lengthy series of blog posts about it - I cut off the first one at a thousand words, and that's just responding to TrackerNeil's introductory quote!

https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/of-j-r-r-tolkien-and-status-quos-part-i/

[Andorion]

17 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Returning to the original article, I have written the first of what is likely to be a lengthy series of blog posts about it - I cut off the first one at a thousand words, and that's just responding to TrackerNeil's introductory quote!

https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/of-j-r-r-tolkien-and-status-quos-part-i/

Read it, liked it. 

The Hobbit simply does not fit the archetypes argued above at all

[TrackerNeil]

2 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Returning to the original article, I have written the first of what is likely to be a lengthy series of blog posts about it - I cut off the first one at a thousand words, and that's just responding to TrackerNeil's introductory quote!

https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/of-j-r-r-tolkien-and-status-quos-part-i/

Oh, RBPL...you are going to make my editor very happy.

[Darth Richard II]

8 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

The paper explains, but but if you need something more...

Ah, yeah sorry I don't know how I missed that. My mind had not been all there this week.

[C.T. Phipps]

6 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Returning to the original article, I have written the first of what is likely to be a lengthy series of blog posts about it - I cut off the first one at a thousand words, and that's just responding to TrackerNeil's introductory quote!

https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/of-j-r-r-tolkien-and-status-quos-part-i/

I swear, it seems like academics can't wrap their head around the fact Tolkien was aware of the problematic views of nostalgia.

Who was it that said there was a word for people who believe writing reflects an author's views and that word was moron?

 

[sologdin]

not moron necessarily.  intentional fallacy is wimsatt & beardsley; death of the author is barthes; author function is foucault.

[David Selig]

5 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I swear, it seems like academics can't wrap their head around the fact Tolkien was aware of the problematic views of nostalgia.

Who was it that said there was a word for people who believe writing reflects an author's views and that word was moron?

 

Larry Niven. 

Quote

“We in the writing profession have a technical term for people who believe that the authors believe everything their characters believe. We call them "idiots”.

 

[TrackerNeil]

5 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I swear, it seems like academics can't wrap their head around the fact Tolkien was aware of the problematic views of nostalgia.

Who was it that said there was a word for people who believe writing reflects an author's views and that word was moron?

 

I'm trying to figure out if I was just called both an academic and a moron. That would be a first for either. 

[C.T. Phipps]

4 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

I'm trying to figure out if I was just called both an academic and a moron. That would be a first for either. 

Neither unless you believe Tolkien wasn't capable of distinguishing fact from his fiction.