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Poor Kerwin


YOVMO

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4 minutes ago, Stoned_Heart said:

I never thought to suspect hot pie.  Wow, that has totally changed my life.  

Varys the merman I'm less onboard with.  How can he swim if his arms are always crossed?

google either of them. There is a bunch of textual proof.

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GRRM really doesn't try hard not to demonise the Ironborn. Ironborn men locked up together for long periods of time = they will rape the weakest man. Night's watchmen locked up together (including convicted rapists) for long periods of time = no rape of any kind reported........

They aren't raping him just to be bad people they are doing it to relieve tension, sodomy was supposedly fairly common within the Navy.

You also need to acknowledge that the Ironborn aren't just a group of Gregor Cleganes roaming the high seas. They rape because they have been told since childhood to take pride in such activities. In their eyes they are breaking no laws or social customs concerning rape, it is Gregor's contempt for these laws or basic social norms that make him villainous while the Ironborn are simply doing what they've always done.

Victarion's lack of care is just that to show how little he cares about those he hates and he despises the maester with a passion.

 

I personally believe that Victarion slitting the Maester's throat and throwing him overboard is a way of him symbolically throwing Euron's plans overboard as the Maester along with Euron's mission was forced upon him and he is just straight up rejecting it, as after this we see him start focusing more on the dragons than on Dany.

 

I also believe he is replying to the criticism he faces for having no male-on-male sexual assaults like he does with the female characters.

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  • 1 year later...
On 6/3/2016 at 7:54 PM, ser plant said:

Ironborn men locked up together for long periods of time = they will rape the weakest man.

They aren't raping him just to be bad people they are doing it to relieve tension, sodomy was supposedly fairly common within the Navy.

 

This. I am chiming in late but the rape of Kerwin is more about the nature of Ironborn being akin to pirates. Historically they did engage in sodomy especially with young/weak members of the crew due to lack of females on board and long stretches of time.  Here there is the "dusky woman" but she is off limits, so they took advantage of Kerwin.

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I never thought there was anything “unusual” about the rape of Kerwin. Surprisingly high numbers of men are victims of sexual violence, and that was true for medieval times. They raped him because there were no available women on board (or they may have been sexually attracted to men anyway), and with no women on board they chose the weakest man, the man who wasn’t “one of them.” Given Ironborn opinion of rape and entitlement and their disdain for weak men and outsiders I’d say the rape of Kerwin is far from surprising. 

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On 6/3/2016 at 2:07 PM, Hugorfonics said:

Victarion himself was nonchalant about it, he gave him a knife and told him to defend himself. Of course he would have died if he tried, although he died anyway. 

Vic's sense of right and wrong is on full display. A man defends himself to the end, and a person who cannot do this is worthy of contempt. From Vic's POV giving the guy a knife was a generous and helpful thing that he did not have to do at all. I'm sure Vic thought he was being quite kind.

After Kerwin shows that he cannot even defend himself, his only use is as a sacrifice to feed the hungry god(s), much like the beauties Victarion later sacrifices on the burning ship.

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Ideas:

First, grrm is above all an expert entertainer; he gives us lots of sex and violence and outrage because that's what humans like - never overestimate the intelligence and good taste of your customers. (I wish he could be a little less entertaining sometimes...)

Second, I think he's developing ideas about a fate that is worse than death (I need a better cliché) - something about the total violation and destruction of the human spirit; an eternity alone, howling in the darkness. We need this because some of the characters, like Beric, maybe like Jon, will already be beyond the threat of death. For them, the sense of danger must come from somewhere else.

Third (the crackpot), if Viserys is the shadow of a snake, I think the Ironborn could be shadows of an entirely horrific undead or white walker culture in the dead lands of winter. We know the Ironborn are into resurrection and the once-dead who can never die. They keep slaves they call thralls - and the WW could be said to keep their wights in thrall, enslaved. And if Patchface is correct, the future is like the sea - maybe the people are like the Ironborn.

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  • 1 month later...

To me it seems it would be setting up a reason for why Kerwin may be poisoning or purposefully not curing Victarion's hand... Meanwhile the whole time it could have been the Dusky Woman. I.E. Kerwin is raped and no remorse shown by Victarion and lack of discipline for the crew by Victarion would provide motive for Kerwin to do such a thing.

Creates a nice little surprise for the reader later on if (or when) it is revealed the Dusky Woman was planted by Euron and is working against him.

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On ‎6‎/‎3‎/‎2016 at 0:09 PM, YOVMO said:

I am wondering if anyone has given any thought to poor kerwin.

After being raped by four crews men and then basically mocked for it by Vic he winds up getting thrown overboard.

 

So is this just GRRM reinforcing the cruelty of the iron born or is this something else. I mean, you could have, in a lot of ways, made the iron born out to be 1) cruel and 2) specifically antagonistic to maesters in a lot of ways. Lord knows GRRM has no shortage of ways to show cruelty.

But when the Mountain rapes the inn keepers daughter and then passes her off to the men and then demands change of a silver it isn't just randomly cruel. Rape is specifically important when talking about the mountain for obvious reasons.

So why not have kerwin beaten, castrated, called a doodie head? What is it about having him gay gang raped that is relevant here? Or is it nothing?

He didn't get mock by Vic for getting raped . Kerwin got mocked because Vic gave him a knife to TCB , BUT he didn't .

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On ‎6‎/‎3‎/‎2016 at 5:09 PM, YOVMO said:

I am wondering if anyone has given any thought to poor kerwin.

After being raped by four crews men and then basically mocked for it by Vic he winds up getting thrown overboard.

 

So is this just GRRM reinforcing the cruelty of the iron born or is this something else. I mean, you could have, in a lot of ways, made the iron born out to be 1) cruel and 2) specifically antagonistic to maesters in a lot of ways. Lord knows GRRM has no shortage of ways to show cruelty.

But when the Mountain rapes the inn keepers daughter and then passes her off to the men and then demands change of a silver it isn't just randomly cruel. Rape is specifically important when talking about the mountain for obvious reasons.

So why not have kerwin beaten, castrated, called a doodie head? What is it about having him gay gang raped that is relevant here? Or is it nothing?

The Ironborn rape those they despise as weak.  Euron did it to Aeron as a child.

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