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GoT and Feminism: What Happens Now?


Damon_Tor

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4 minutes ago, L’Age d’or said:

Well Feminists are as mad as Dany and her destruction of KL could be an allegory for the ultimate goal of Feminism which is to destroy western civilisation and social harmony. 

For whom is there social harmony right now?

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1 minute ago, Jarl Halstein said:

Devil's advocate. Ah.

I forgot Dany's brother Viserys Targaryen, who was far more crazy than she was. He was every bit the son of the Mad King. Torturing Dany by twisting her nipples and beating her, threatening her, making demands on the Dothraki - presented as despicable as D&D could possibly make him. Remembering Viserys and the Mad King actually make Dany's snapping at King's Landing more believable, though they had to add an intro to remind everyone that Targaryens are crazy, since they hadn't kept that in  the story in a good way.

As for good women, there's Brienne. Theon's sister Asha Greyjoy. There was Catelyn Stark, betrayed and murdered by men. The prostitute Ros tortured to death by Joffrey. The Go Grrrl Sand Snakes and their mother - misdirected but clearly meaning well, until killed by a man.  The innocent women north of the Wall. The Go Grrrl Ygritte. The Red Priestess - mercilessly focused, but clearly doing it all to save the world from the Endless Night, which she did help with. Missandei. And more, I'm sure. Especially all the constant female victims killed or chased by men.

3

You're focusing on individual details. This is about a theme, symbolism, and an overarching thread.

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7 minutes ago, Wildling Queen said:

King's Landing is a symbol. Tearing it down is symbolic and a reference to the destruction of traditional paradigms of power.

I guess burning the city might have made her feel better, little revenge maybe.  But the traditional paradigm of power still remains the same though.  The common people just lost one nuts ruler and gained an even crazier one.  

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5 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

If I recall correctly, the first sexposition scene was Viserys and Doreah in the bath. Which certainly portrayed Viserys as misogynistic, but we clearly weren't supposed to be endorsing his view.

Oh, well, I didn't mean that one. Although there was no much exposition going on there, no? Some talk about dragons which didn't exactly move the plot forward.

But the point of the sexposition crap just is that you have full frontal female nudity in a demeaning setting. They are just eye candy extras/whores. You can have sex scenes and nude scenes and all, but the way they did them basically reinforced all misogynistic stereotypes.

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Just now, Bradam said:

I guess burning the city might have made her feel better, little revenge maybe.  But the traditional paradigm of power still remains the same though.  The common people just lost one nuts ruler and gained an even crazier one.  

I don't personally believe Dany will make it. And burning down the city was a symbol of burning down the system and starting over, creating new ways to organize society. That new society won't be led by Dany.

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1 minute ago, Calaryion said:

Any female who follows the show for Dany, is more to do with Emilia, who despite the shows regression has been superb. Not to mention the fact she’s had two medical issues and has carried on going! 

I thought Emilia Clarke was phenomenal last night. She even looked different. Not just in the opening scene with no makeup, that was a pretty obvious thing. But her eyes when she was on top of that dragon. She even LOOKED like a different person at that point.

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3 minutes ago, Wildling Queen said:

I don't personally believe Dany will make it. And burning down the city was a symbol of burning down the system and starting over, creating new ways to organize society. That new society won't be led by Dany.

Year Zero has decidedly creepy connotations, of course.

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Just now, Wildling Queen said:

I thought Emilia Clarke was phenomenal last night. She even looked different. Not just in the opening scene with no makeup, that was a pretty obvious thing. But her eyes when she was on top of that dragon. She even LOOKED like a different person at that point.

I agree, she’s played the part superbly, when I ready the books I picture Emilia, and that is the sign of a good actress, if you can picture them whilst you read. She’s made the role her own, as many of the actors have. She delivers in every seen she’s been a joy to watch! 

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6 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, well, I didn't mean that one. Although there was no much exposition going on there, no? Some talk about dragons which didn't exactly move the plot forward.

But the point of the sexposition crap just is that you have full frontal female nudity in a demeaning setting. They are just eye candy extras/whores. You can have sex scenes and nude scenes and all, but the way they did them basically reinforced all misogynistic stereotypes.

Oh agreed. Ros in particular was a mistake.

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Assuming Dany dies I could see Westeros fracturing into city states, kind of like the germanic people were pre Bismarck.  It does leave the interesting question of what happens to the unsullied and dothraki that are left. 

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I dont like how the women ended up being portrayed on the show either. People claming men do terrible things as well are missing the point. Men dont get stigmatized when other men do something terrible like women do.  Also if you want to see strong male characters you can go read any other fantasies series or any book really. Asoiaf is one of the few stories to have amazing female characters and that's rare. 

I hate that Dany turns crazy when she tastes a little bit of power. Cersei is insane. Arya has become a parody of herself. Sansa is so inconsistent. I only had Dany left as my favorite and after last night I am left dissapointed that George has gone down that road. I guess we'll have to see if Brienne's book story mirrors that of the show but she is only a minor character so yes, I would say that the female characters were not well handled here. 

 

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10 minutes ago, olenna123 said:

Wow there are some defensive people here. 

I dont like how the women ended up being portrayed on the show either. People claming men do terrible things as well are missing the point. Men dont get stigmatized when other men do something terrible like women do.  Also if you want to see strong male characters you can go read any other fantasies series or any book really. Asoiaf is one of the few stories to have amazing female characters and that's rare. 

I hate that Dany turns crazy when she tastes a little bit of power. Cersei is insane. Arya has become a parody of herself. Sansa is so inconsistent. I only had Dany left as my favorite and after last night I am left dissapointed that George has gone down that road. I guess we'll have to see if Brienne's book story mirrors that of the show but she is only a minor character so yes, I would say that the female characters were not well handled here. 

 

I think as far as a feminist trope, Dany and Cersei ended up exactly the way they should have. They were too married to traditional notions of power and how it should be structured to be feminism heroines. Sansa, Arya, and Brienne all have power but in completely different ways from the traditional forms. That, to me, is feminism.

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1 hour ago, Damon_Tor said:

So the last positive female characters we have left are:

Sansa?

...

Anyone else?

Someone's going to say Arya, but this is still the person who thought it was okay to bake a man's sons into a pie and feed them to him, then poison every male member of his family.

Some people believe equality in the society is to be equally bad. For example, if men murder, then women should murder too.

Instead of arriving at the correct conclusion that no one should murder.

I see many such people loving Arya's horrible side. A murder should not be solved by murder. A trial and execution maybe, but not cold blooded murder.

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1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Ramsay flays people as a form of recreation;  Tywin and Ser Gregor torture and abuse countless peasants in the Riverlands.  Walder Frey murdered hundreds of people at a wedding celebration. 

Daenerys fits in.

Daenerys just intentionally burned tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent smallfolk to death with her dragon, choosing to chase them down and murder them when she could have flown straight to Cersei, having already destroyed all of KL's defenses against her dragon. She has without question committed the most evil atrocity in the history of Westeros. There might be other characters who would have done the same, but they didn't have her weapon of mass destruction. She did have that weapon, and she went out of her way to use it against innocent smallfolk who likely would have embraced and loved her had she just taken out Cersei and assumed power.

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Let me put this way

I am not a feminist, by far. I believe I could even be considered an anti-feminist (not because I'm not for equal rights, quite the contrary). But I actually know what feminism is and stands for, and despite agreeing with it or not with the doctrine this "feminism" portrayed by big media is like, the shallowest and stupidier version of those ideas that is humanly possible to produce. 

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One thing feminists seem to ignore is that true equality means equality across the board. You don't just get to cherry pick the things you want, you gotta take the bad with the good. If you want women portrayed as leaders then you have to deal with some of them becoming tyrants.

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12 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Daenerys just intentionally burned tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent smallfolk to death with her dragon, choosing to chase them down and murder them when she could have flown straight to Cersei, having already destroyed all of KL's defenses against her dragon. She has without question committed the most evil atrocity in the history of Westeros. There might be other characters who would have done the same, but they didn't have her weapon of mass destruction. She did have that weapon, and she went out of her way to use it against innocent smallfolk who likely would have embraced and loved her had she just taken out Cersei and assumed power.

In terms of sheer horror, it is on a par with what Aegon, Visenya, and Rhaenys did in Dorne.  Therefore, it is not at all unprecedented. 

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1 hour ago, Wildling Queen said:

I think as far as a feminist trope, Dany and Cersei ended up exactly the way they should have. They were too married to traditional notions of power and how it should be structured to be feminism heroines. Sansa, Arya, and Brienne all have power but in completely different ways from the traditional forms. That, to me, is feminism.

Ayra and Brienne def broke tradition.  Sansa though is kinda just Cersi/Littlefingers love child imo. 

Honorable mention to Olenna?  She was one of my favorite characters but a bit harder to figure out as we dont have that much of her backstory to go on.

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Just now, Bradam said:

Ayra and Brienne def broke tradition.  Sansa though is kinda just Cersi/Littlefingers love child imo. 

Honorable mention to Olenna?  She was one of my favorite characters but a bit harder to figure out as we dont have that much of her backstory to go on.

Absolutely Olenna! There's a whole thesis I could write about how women navigate patriarchal spaces and upend notions of power from within heterotopic spaces, but I digress. Suffice it to say that Olenna was awesome. B)

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