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Do D&D hate feminity?


Varysblackfyre321

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I don't consider myself  to be uber PC, but  I read something pretty interesting by someone discussing how a lot of D&D have strong female characters like Briene or Arya despise their gender (saying girls are stupid, using woman as an insult),and really really abandon any trace of traditional feminity they had.

I don't know I get the gay thing (they made Renlyy and Loras identity nearly surrounded with being gay and played up gay steroutypes),but is this stretching?

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12 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I don't consider myself  to be uber PC, but  I read something pretty interesting by someone discussing how a lot of D&D have strong female characters like Briene or Arya despise their gender (saying girls are stupid, using woman as an insult),and really really abandon any trace of traditional feminity they had.

I don't know I get the gay thing (they made Ramsey and Lotas's identity nearly surrounded with being gay and played up gay steroutypes),but is this stretching?

Ramsey is not gay. Renly and Loras you mean.

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  • 2 weeks later...

They like what ever is popular and will make for "OMG BREAK THE INTERNET" moments. I don't think they care for feminity. Arya and Brianne are pretty much like that in the books as well from what I remember, so they didn't do much to change that.

But after the Sansa rape they had to empower women a lot on the show and made some seriously questionable show direction changes because of it. So I don't think that makes them pro females, just pro not having people hate them.

They in general, in my opinion, just seem very pro themselves and very full of themselves. So maybe they do hate feminity? Because that's not them?

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I don't see it so much as hating femininity, but the natural outcome of so many of the male leaders being killed off.  This happened in the War of the Roses which George used as a template for a lot of the dynastic conflict.  When so many men die off in a feudal society, either highborn women take a larger and larger share of the power or lower ranked men step into their deceased higher ranked peers shoes.  In RL you had a combo of these two phenomenon, and the same holds for GoT.  Davos, Gendry, Bronn etc were, as far as we know, low born and they've risen.  Women who were highborn to begin with, but limited due to their sex, loose the restrictions and act on their own in lieu of their male relations.   Brienne and Arya were unfeminine from the start, but once there were fewer barriers to their be accepted in those traditionally masculine rolls, they were able to shine.  Brienne is the perfect example.  Look how men treat her in Season 2, when most of the highborn men, though at war, are still around and giving orders, and look at her now.  She's grown as a character, yes, but the world has also changed around her at the same time.   

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On 1/3/2018 at 8:46 PM, btfu806 said:

They like what ever is popular and will make for "OMG BREAK THE INTERNET" moments. I don't think they care for feminity. Arya and Brianne are pretty much like that in the books as well from what I remember, so they didn't do much to change that.

But after the Sansa rape they had to empower women a lot on the show and made some seriously questionable show direction changes because of it. So I don't think that makes them pro females, just pro not having people hate them.

They in general, in my opinion, just seem very pro themselves and very full of themselves. So maybe they do hate feminity? Because that's not them?

No, Brienne and Arya are nothing like that in the books. Neither of them hate other women or their gender. Using "woman" as an insult or saying that "most girls are stupid" are show-only lines. In the books, Arya and Brienne both like their gender and respect other women, including women who are more traditionally feminine or 'ladylike'. Arya actually says proto-feminist stuff like "the woman is important, too!" They aren't misogynists. Cersei is. And Cersei is a villain, and we're supposed to disagree with her views of the world and see how her internalized misogyny is a part of her messed up mindset. In the show, women like Arya or Brienne (or Talisa) are portrayed as "Not Like the Other Girls", the stereotype where the only women who are strong and worthwhile are those who act more like 'one of the guys' and reject the rest of their stupid, useless gender.

Also, neither of them is the annoying caricature they are in the show. Brienne is the complete opposite of the unemotional, rude, bullying killing machine that is show Brienne - she is one of the gentlest, most idealistic and honorable souls in the series.

D&D love stereotypes. Whenever Martin subverts a stereotype, they go out of their way to conform to it. In the show, women can only be "empowered" in one of the two ways: 1) as physical fighters, preferably violent murderous assholes, or 2) sexually manipulating men. (Any woman that does not fit into that mold was either rewritten to fit it, or pushed into the background, like Catelyn..) And over the time, scales have tipped into the direction of the former as the preferable way to be empowered, therefore season 6 being advertised with that stupid "Women on Top" catchphrase, and D&D going out of their way to have every female character be a violent asshole who burns and destroys stuff and murders people. 

This type of faux feminism is pretty popular in general, GoT just may be one of the worst examples of it. 

To answer the question: do D&D hate femininity? It depends on how one defines "femininity". They certainly don't hate femininity in the sense of conventional female sexual attractiveness. But in the sense of "femininity" as a set of traits that are traditionally associated with women - although in reality males can have those traits while females might not - i.e. such traits as emotional openness, compassion, kindness, nurturing qualities - they certainly seem to consider those traits inferior, weak and useless. Their idea of strength - for both men and women - is what's called "Toxic Masculinity" - reliance on violence to solve all problems, lack of emotion (except anger), sexual aggressiveness, lack of compassion, etc.


It's a problem with the writing for male characters, as well. You just have to take a look at how they've rewritten Samwell Tarly's character, or how Jon's intelligence and political reformism is forgotten in favor of him waving a sword around, or how Jaime hilariously fights with his golden hand instead of learning to use his brains to solve problems, or how Yara tells Theon to basically shut up and get over his horrible trauma by fighting and f*cking (or as close as he can get to it), etc. 

 

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5 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

No, Brienne and Arya are nothing like that in the books. Neither of them hate other women or their gender. Using "woman" as an insult or saying that "most girls are stupid" are show-only lines. In the books, Arya and Brienne both like their gender and respect other women, including women who are more traditionally feminine or 'ladylike'. Arya actually says proto-feminist stuff like "the woman is important, too!" They aren't misogynists. Cersei is. And Cersei is a villain, and we're supposed to disagree with her views of the world and see how her internalized misogyny is a part of her messed up mindset. In the show, women like Arya or Brienne (or Talisa) are portrayed as "Not Like the Other Girls", the stereotype where the only women who are strong and worthwhile are those who act more like 'one of the guys' and reject the rest of their stupid, useless gender.

Also, neither of them is the annoying caricature they are in the show. Brienne is the complete opposite of the emotional, rude, bullying killing machine that is show Brienne - she is one of the gentlest, most idealistic and honorable souls in the series.

D&D love stereotypes. Whenever Martin subverts a stereotype, they go out of their way to conform to it. In the show, women can only be "empowered" in one of the two ways: 1) as physical fighters, preferably violent murderous assholes, or 2) sexually manipulating men. (Any woman that does not fit into that mold was either rewritten to fit it, or pushed into the background, like Catelyn..) And over the time, scales have tipped into the direction of the former as the preferable way to be empowered, therefore season 6 being advertised with that stupid "Women on Top" catchphrase, and D&D going out of their way to have every female character be a violent asshole who burns and destroys stuff and murders people. 

This type of faux feminism is pretty popular in general, GoT just may be one of the worst examples of it. 

To answer the question: do D&D hate femininity? It depends on how one defines "femininity". They certainly don't hate femininity in the sense of conventional female sexual attractiveness. But in the sense of "femininity" as a set of traits that are traditionally associated with women - although in reality males can have those traits while females might not - i.e. such traits as emotional openness, compassion, kindness, nurturing qualities - they certainly seem to consider those traits inferior, weak and useless. Their idea of strength - for both men and women - is what's called "Toxic Masculinity" - reliance on violence to solve all problems, lack of emotion (except anger), sexual aggressiveness, lack of compassion, etc.


It's a problem with the writing for male characters, as well. You just have to take a look at how they've rewritten Samwell Tarly's character, or how Jon's intelligence and political reformism is forgotten in favor of him waving a sword around, or how Jaime hilariously fights with his golden hand instead of learning to use his brains to solve problems, or how Yara tells Theon to basically shut up and get over his horrible trauma by fighting and f*cking (or as close as he can get to it), etc. 

 

In the books, you get POV, that is you can hear the thoughts of the characters in question.  Television is primarily a visual medium, where actions speak loudest and garner the best audience response.  Yes, some of the dialogue could be tweaked to make these characters' motivations more clear, but the medium limits the message here, especially in a show world where people rarely speak freely or honestly.  

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3 minutes ago, aeverett said:

In the books, you get POV, that is you can hear the thoughts of the characters in question.  Television is primarily a visual medium, where actions speak loudest and garner the best audience response.  Yes, some of the dialogue could be tweaked to make these characters' motivations more clear, but the medium limits the message here, especially in a show world where people rarely speak freely or honestly.  

What does that have to do with lines that people actually speak in the books or things they do in the books and that they don't in the show? Or vice versa?

Please tell me why Brienne had to tell Jaime "You sound like a bloody woman" in a visual medium, as opposed to calling him a craven (coward) as she did in the books? How did the visual medium dictate that Arya said "Most girls are stupid"? Did the nature of the visual medium make Ellaria and the Sand Snakes go and murder Oberyn's family in the name of avenging Oberyn? How did TV make it necessary for Brienne to be rude to Podrick instead of nice and kind, and why couldn't she have been fighting to protect smallfolk orphans in an inn she just came across from depraved murderers, as she does in the books, as opposed to mostly doing nothing over the last few seasons, except killing Stannis?

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I think they have a very poor understanding of what a strong female character is. I think they consider the more traditionally feminine characters like Sansa or Cat boring and weak, so Cat got sidelined as a secondary character in her own story and Sansa was treated as a punching bag until she became super strong and intelligent though rape (?).

Then there're the unconventionaly feminine characters like Brienne and Arya (I refuse to call them masculine just because they don't fit a mold). Brienne is so sweet and gentle in the books and they had to make her rude and violent. And Arya might be impulsive and want to fight but she's still tiny and weak, she mostly survived using her brain, being perceptive and cunning, yet in the show she's not very bright, just a badass fighter. It's like they can't conceive that a woman can stray from gender roles without being some woman-hating brute.

 

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On 1/6/2018 at 6:50 AM, Annara Snow said:

No, Brienne and Arya are nothing like that in the books. Neither of them hate other women or their gender. Using "woman" as an insult or saying that "most girls are stupid" are show-only lines. In the books, Arya and Brienne both like their gender and respect other women, including women who are more traditionally feminine or 'ladylike'. Arya actually says proto-feminist stuff like "the woman is important, too!" They aren't misogynists. Cersei is. And Cersei is a villain, and we're supposed to disagree with her views of the world and see how her internalized misogyny is a part of her messed up mindset. In the show, women like Arya or Brienne (or Talisa) are portrayed as "Not Like the Other Girls", the stereotype where the only women who are strong and worthwhile are those who act more like 'one of the guys' and reject the rest of their stupid, useless gender.

Also, neither of them is the annoying caricature they are in the show. Brienne is the complete opposite of the emotional, rude, bullying killing machine that is show Brienne - she is one of the gentlest, most idealistic and honorable souls in the series.

D&D love stereotypes. Whenever Martin subverts a stereotype, they go out of their way to conform to it. In the show, women can only be "empowered" in one of the two ways: 1) as physical fighters, preferably violent murderous assholes, or 2) sexually manipulating men. (Any woman that does not fit into that mold was either rewritten to fit it, or pushed into the background, like Catelyn..) And over the time, scales have tipped into the direction of the former as the preferable way to be empowered, therefore season 6 being advertised with that stupid "Women on Top" catchphrase, and D&D going out of their way to have every female character be a violent asshole who burns and destroys stuff and murders people. 

This type of faux feminism is pretty popular in general, GoT just may be one of the worst examples of it. 

To answer the question: do D&D hate femininity? It depends on how one defines "femininity". They certainly don't hate femininity in the sense of conventional female sexual attractiveness. But in the sense of "femininity" as a set of traits that are traditionally associated with women - although in reality males can have those traits while females might not - i.e. such traits as emotional openness, compassion, kindness, nurturing qualities - they certainly seem to consider those traits inferior, weak and useless. Their idea of strength - for both men and women - is what's called "Toxic Masculinity" - reliance on violence to solve all problems, lack of emotion (except anger), sexual aggressiveness, lack of compassion, etc.


It's a problem with the writing for male characters, as well. You just have to take a look at how they've rewritten Samwell Tarly's character, or how Jon's intelligence and political reformism is forgotten in favor of him waving a sword around, or how Jaime hilariously fights with his golden hand instead of learning to use his brains to solve problems, or how Yara tells Theon to basically shut up and get over his horrible trauma by fighting and f*cking (or as close as he can get to it), etc. 

 

Honestly, I have to go back and read the books, I don't remember off the top of my head. I remember Arya not liking girls for the most part and same with Brianne. But you may be absolutely right, it's just been a while.

 

Agreed on pretty much everything else you said.

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I never really thought that they hated femininity myself. There are so many female characters with different interests and motivations. The biggest issue I had was that characters - not just females but in general - started to drift into the realm of stereotypes.

It feels like everyone needs to be an awesome badass. Think about how "dummed down" characters like Jon are. One of my favourite aspects of ADwD was Jon running the Wall because he was coming into his own despite being a 16/17 year old boy. It's like they thought, "We can't have Jon sitting around trying to effectively rule and struggling with the responsibility as a parallel to his brother Robb and Dany in Meereen. No, no, we need him to swing his sword and kicking ass!" Same with Arya, "We can't show Arya's processing identity crisis. No, no, we need her swinging swords and doing her manic badass face as much as possible!"

One thing I will say is that D&D really wanted to sell the idea that Sansa was the only smart one actually preparing to Winter while the other two "queens" we're burning food supplies and screaming about their rights as rightful queen. Granted Jon was saying the War of the Two Queens was stupid, too, but his boundless stupidity held him back everywhere else.

So, I don't even think this is a feminine issue but a D&D struggling with nuance... problem. :wacko:

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On 1/7/2018 at 6:09 AM, elipride said:

I think they have a very poor understanding of what a strong female character is. I think they consider the more traditionally feminine characters like Sansa or Cat boring and weak, so Cat got sidelined as a secondary character in her own story and Sansa was treated as a punching bag until she became super strong and intelligent though rape (?).

Then there're the unconventionaly femine characters like Brienne and Arya (I refuse to call them masculine just because they don't fit a mold). Brienne is so sweet and gentle in the books and they had to make her rude and violent. And Arya might be impulsive and want to fight but she's still tiny and weak, she mostly survived using her brain, being perceptive and cunning, yet in the show she's not very bright, just a badass fighter. It's like they can't conceive that a woman can stray from gender roles without being some woman-hating brute.

 

YES came here to say this! 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Simply put, yes, even to the point of hating practical femininity.

For example: They think they're being SUPAR FEMINIST when they have Lyanna Mormont (who is always right from D&D's point of view) say that she wants all the women being trained in the art of war, and that she isn't gonna be sitting around knitting socks.

Well, that's all well and good, Lyanna, and yes, in an ideal society, both men and women would be free to choose whether or not they train to fight or knit socks, but bitch, knitting socks for an army that's in the fucking cold is important. Making provisions for an army? Fucking important. And not only that, but, sad as it is to say, IT'S NOT PRACTICAL TO BE FORCING LORD GLOVER'S GRANDDAUGHTER TO FIGHT. Notably, no-one in the discussion asks what Lord Glover's granddaughter would want, as that'd be, you know, actual feminism.

So, why is it impractical to be forcing everyone to suddenly take up co-ed classes, you may ask? Well, most girls in this patriarchal society are already part-trained to knit, make food, you know, shit for provisioning an army. Most boys will be partially trained to fight. So the most efficient route that will reduce the amount of time needed to train? Keeping the roles as they are.

Another example is how eeeeeeevil Sansa needs to prove her family loyalty because she likes pretty dresses, but Arya, the one who threatened to flay Sansa's face? She's obviously loyal to her family, because she fights, kills, and wears manly clothes, thus she's not catty like them eeeeeevil feminine womens.

So yeah, I think D&D understand feminism to be 'hate stereotypically feminine roles' as opposed to 'don't restrict women to feminine roles', and so they basically demonise every woman who isn't a masculine 'badass' as useless, and every masculine woman as the best hero ever, or 'already there', as D&D said about Arya.

I think D&D's relationship with feminine women is that they're weird and icky and have cooties but they make their peepees feel really funny. You know, what five-year-olds like them generally think.

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On 1/24/2018 at 2:13 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

[snip]

I couldn't agree more with your post. But would like to add that D&D also suck at writing female relationships.

Dany is the female character with the most female relationships and they're all lackluster. Meanwhile Jon is out there bonding with every bro he meets.

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On 1/24/2018 at 3:13 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

Simply put, yes, even to the point of hating practical femininity.

For example: They think they're being SUPAR FEMINIST when they have Lyanna Mormont (who is always right from D&D's point of view) say that she wants all the women being trained in the art of war, and that she isn't gonna be sitting around knitting socks.

Well, that's all well and good, Lyanna, and yes, in an ideal society, both men and women would be free to choose whether or not they train to fight or knit socks, but bitch, knitting socks for an army that's in the fucking cold is important. Making provisions for an army? Fucking important. And not only that, but, sad as it is to say, IT'S NOT PRACTICAL TO BE FORCING LORD GLOVER'S GRANDDAUGHTER TO FIGHT. Notably, no-one in the discussion asks what Lord Glover's granddaughter would want, as that'd be, you know, actual feminism.

So, why is it impractical to be forcing everyone to suddenly take up co-ed classes, you may ask? Well, most girls in this patriarchal society are already part-trained to knit, make food, you know, shit for provisioning an army. Most boys will be partially trained to fight. So the most efficient route that will reduce the amount of time needed to train? Keeping the roles as they are.

Another example is how eeeeeeevil Sansa needs to prove her family loyalty because she likes pretty dresses, but Arya, the one who threatened to flay Sansa's face? She's obviously loyal to her family, because she fights, kills, and wears manly clothes, thus she's not catty like them eeeeeevil feminine womens.

So yeah, I think D&D understand feminism to be 'hate stereotypically feminine roles' as opposed to 'don't restrict women to feminine roles', and so they basically demonise every woman who isn't a masculine 'badass' as useless, and every masculine woman as the best hero ever, or 'already there', as D&D said about Arya.

I think D&D's relationship with feminine women is that they're weird and icky and have cooties but they make their peepees feel really funny. You know, what five-year-olds like them generally think.

And there I was, thinking that feminism was men and women being on equal terms.

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