Was Arianne Martell in love with Ser Arys Oakheart?

[Ser Thomas Derpingham]

Yeah, Arya often gets lumped with Brienne but they're not the same type of fighters. She's can't fight like Brienne. She doesn't have her build. She doesn't have her training or skills either. She mainly has to use the element of surprise and in ADWD stealth. Her idol Nymeria wasn't a combatant either. I don't think Arya is the Asha or Brienne type.

Brienne is a war horse, or perhaps even a female Auroch.

Arya is a she-wolf. They have totally different disciplines of fighting.

Arya sticks them with the pointy end, Brienne hammers away at them like she's forging steel.

[Castel]

No, it's not that exactly. I'm on the fence about the morality of this. Sexual favors are a form of bribery. While I do not like bribery, I am having trouble condemning Arienne's actions as uniquely immoral because it involves sex. Especially in a setting where boys and girls are horse-traded for political alliances, I feel uncomfortable calling out the sex as particularly wrong. While I don't believe Arienne loved him, I do think they both got something out of the sex, and she did feel genuinely distraught tat she'd gotten him killed. ... He wanted to use her and dispose of her, while Arienne has no intention of discarding Arys thusly.

This honestly. I think that Arianne had some affection for Ser Arys, but love is stretching it. Unfortunately for Arys, he's convinced himself that he wouldn't break his oaths unless he was in love, something that might be true, I don't know. To be honest the workings of his mind are strange, that charge at the end...

[Silmarien]

I swear there's something in the water today.....geez people.

[Zefsfonseca]

Yes, but she was really sad when he died...

[femfatalatron]

Just look at your first post to see your double standard:

"Is Littlefinger a bitch for sleeping with/marrying Lysa for political ends only? Is Brandon a bitch for sleeping with that Lady in North and leaving her behind?

Oh, no. Brandon Stark is awesome. Such a MAN! But Arienne, what a bitch - using that poor innocent knight who was totally a good person and only occasionally beat young girls."

You excuse the woman while railing on the men when the fact is that both the men and woman are at fault, not only the men. Litterfinger used Lysa as a pawn just like Arrianne used Ser Arys but one is alright to you and one is wrong with the difference being one is a male while the other is female.

I don't want to take on the ENTIRE ongoing argument between you two, but in that particular quote I don't see her particularly blaming the men OR excusing the woman. She's pointing out that Arianne, Brandon, and Littlefinger all did comparable things (and actually I wouldn't put either Brandon or Arianne in the same category as Littlefinger), and yet of the bunch, Arianne takes more blame than the other two for doing roughly the same thing. She was pointing out a double standard, not creating one.

When pressed about double standards, people will admit that what Littlefinger did to Lysa was, in fact, wrong. But I have to admit that I've NEVER seen a spontaneous outpouring of sympathy for her on these forums like what Arys is getting here. If one of them deserves sympathy for being sexually manipulated, so does the other.

Another interesting comparison can be made between Littlefinger and Cersei, who I think are about equivalently villainous, yeah? My personal opinion is that their sexual sins are not the worst things that either of them have done, but my perception is that Cersei takes more shit on these forums specifically for the sexual stuff she gets up to.

But perception is only perception, so I did a quick search of the forums: "cersei bitch" has 2960 results. "littlefinger dick" has 592 results. Of those, some fraction of the posts are actually talking about his penis (I'm gonna decline to dig any deeper into that). And just to be safe "baelish dick" turns up 216 results. So while you might consider "bitch" and "dick" to be opposingly gendered insults of equal weight, one of those is getting thrown around approximately 3.66 times more often than the other for basically equivalent behavior.

I'd also like to propose a thought experiment (though anyone who likes is also willing to try this in real life, at their own risk). Call a man a "bitch" vs. a "dick" and see which insult pisses him off more. Do the same to a woman. I hypothesize that "bitch" is more incendiary in both cases, but I'll admit that more empirical data needs to be gathered on this one.

Anyway, my read on the situation is that Arianne wasn't entirely honest which 1) isn't cool but also 2) isn't unusual. I read her as trying to engineer a scenario in which she benefits (get her inheritance), Myrcella benefits (becomes queen), the realm benefits (it's hinted that Myrcella really is better suited for it than Tommen), and nothing really terrible happens to Arys (he gets some good sex and then probably-but-not-certainly a bad breakup -- in the grand scheme of things, most of us go through something like that in life and come out ok). She screwed it up and got him killed because she's not nearly as smart as she thinks she is. And she's genuinely upset because even though she was using him, she really did kinda like the guy. That sucks, I really do feel bad for Arys. But intention counts for something, which means she's not nearly in the same league of villainy as Littlefinger, whose plan intentionally hinged on killing Lysa.

It's also pretty tough to do an apples-to-apples comparison of male/female sexual manipulation in ASoIaF because really the only example of a man doing it is Littlefinger + Lysa (I'm not counting simple promiscuity -- there's plenty of that but it's not the same). Not much to work with, yknow?

Going forward, I'm gonna use "asshole" as my insult-of-choice. That just seems safest. :)

[David C. Hunter]

I don't want to take on the ENTIRE ongoing argument between you two, but in that particular quote I don't see her particularly blaming the men OR excusing the woman. She's pointing out that Arianne, Brandon, and Littlefinger all did comparable things (and actually I wouldn't put either Brandon or Arianne in the same category as Littlefinger), and yet of the bunch, Arianne takes more blame than the other two for doing roughly the same thing. She was pointing out a double standard, not creating one.

When pressed about double standards, people will admit that what Littlefinger did to Lysa was, in fact, wrong. But I have to admit that I've NEVER seen a spontaneous outpouring of sympathy for her on these forums like what Arys is getting here. If one of them deserves sympathy for being sexually manipulated, so does the other.

Another interesting comparison can be made between Littlefinger and Cersei, who I think are about equivalently villainous, yeah? My personal opinion is that their sexual sins are not the worst things that either of them have done, but my perception is that Cersei takes more shit on these forums specifically for the sexual stuff she gets up to.

But perception is only perception, so I did a quick search of the forums: "cersei bitch" has 2960 results. "littlefinger dick" has 592 results. Of those, some fraction of the posts are actually talking about his penis (I'm gonna decline to dig any deeper into that). And just to be safe "baelish dick" turns up 216 results. So while you might consider "bitch" and "dick" to be opposingly gendered insults of equal weight, one of those is getting thrown around approximately 3.66 times more often than the other for basically equivalent behavior.

I'd also like to propose a thought experiment (though anyone who likes is also willing to try this in real life, at their own risk). Call a man a "bitch" vs. a "dick" and see which insult pisses him off more. Do the same to a woman. I hypothesize that "bitch" is more incendiary in both cases, but I'll admit that more empirical data needs to be gathered on this one.

Anyway, my read on the situation is that Arianne wasn't entirely honest which 1) isn't cool but also 2) isn't unusual. I read her as trying to engineer a scenario in which she benefits (get her inheritance), Myrcella benefits (becomes queen), the realm benefits (it's hinted that Myrcella really is better suited for it than Tommen), and nothing really terrible happens to Arys (he gets some good sex and then probably-but-not-certainly a bad breakup -- in the grand scheme of things, most of us go through something like that in life and come out ok). She screwed it up and got him killed because she's not nearly as smart as she thinks she is. And she's genuinely upset because even though she was using him, she really did kinda like the guy. That sucks, I really do feel bad for Arys. But intention counts for something, which means she's not nearly in the same league of villainy as Littlefinger, whose plan intentionally hinged on killing Lysa.

It's also pretty tough to do an apples-to-apples comparison of male/female sexual manipulation in ASoIaF because really the only example of a man doing it is Littlefinger + Lysa (I'm not counting simple promiscuity -- there's plenty of that but it's not the same). Not much to work with, yknow?

Going forward, I'm gonna use "asshole" as my insult-of-choice. That just seems safest. :)

I'll use 'piece of shit' for the guys and 'bitch' for the girls. My phrases of choice.

On topic(Before we get locked), I truly believed Arianne cared about him, but if he wouldnt have gone with her plans I doubt she would still care for him.

[Dr. Pepper]

She pursued him, not the other way around. And she used more than just her vagina to break him (and his POV makes it very clear he's broken). She dangled actual love at him. This is what caused him to become an oathbreaker. And when he tried to end the affair, she found ways to guilt him into staying with her.

No one is denying that she used him or denying that she used her body to manipulate him. The thing is, Arys was a sworn Kingsguard member who had taken a vow of celibacy. The reason Kingsguard take vows of celibacy and to hold no lands or titles is to prevent this very thing. It distracts them from their prime objective which is to defend and protect the royal family. Arys went into that affair knowing that it was wrong, knowing that Arianne knew it was wrong. It doesn't matter if her vagina is the most delicious vagina in all the world or that she dangles love like a carrot in front of his eyes or that she makes him feel guilty. I feel sorry for Arys, I really do. But he's responsible for his own actions. Arianne can't make him do or feel anything he doesn't want to feel. She can't force him to dishonor his vows because as far as we know she has no magical ensorceling powers.

Typical response. You criticize a strong female character on this board and are labeled a sexist.

No, this is not why this thread devolved into a debate on sexism. Criticism of a female character does not make it sexist. It's that this thread's original title asked if Arianne love Arys or if she was just a bitch, the implication being that a woman is a bitch for not loving the man she sleeps with. The word bitch isn't what's offensive, it's the context in which it's used. Bitch and cunt and asshole and dick are all fair game, when the context stays away from demeaning sexism (for either gender).

[David C. Hunter]

No one is denying that she used him or denying that she used her body to manipulate him. The thing is, Arys was a sworn Kingsguard member who had taken a vow of celibacy. The reason Kingsguard take vows of celibacy and to hold no lands or titles is to prevent this very thing. It distracts them from their prime objective which is to defend and protect the royal family. Arys went into that affair knowing that it was wrong, knowing that Arianne knew it was wrong. It doesn't matter if her vagina is the most delicious vagina in all the world or that she dangles love like a carrot in front of his eyes or that she makes him feel guilty. I feel sorry for Arys, I really do. But he's responsible for his own actions. Arianne can't make him do or feel anything he doesn't want to feel. She can't force him to dishonor his vows because as far as we know she has no magical ensorceling powers.

No, this is not why this thread devolved into a debate on sexism. Criticism of a female character does not make it sexist. It's that this thread's original title asked if Arianne love Arys or if she was just a bitch, the implication being that a woman is a bitch for not loving the man she sleeps with. The word bitch isn't what's offensive, it's the context in which it's used. Bitch and cunt and asshole and dick are all fair game, when the context stays away from demeaning sexism (for either gender).

Very nicely put