For Jaime/Hound supporters: Would your attitude towards the Hound/Jaime change, if Mycah/Bran had been a girl?

[Ivan Tsarevich]

It might, but not a lot.

First, let me note that "supporting" a character, at least in my personal case, is completely different with actually accepting or supporting their deeds. Jaime should not have thrown Bran out of window/Sandor should not have killed Mycah. I myself am quite detached from the characters - it's just books, after all - but when you get down to it, the pain, suffering and injustice that befalls their victims is lamentable. I will not have a part with those deeds. Not to say that I might not myself commit just the same in their respective situations*, but luckily I never did and they can answer their crimes themselves. I do not, however, necessarily judge them either. There does exist some nuance. 

*I could say I wouldn't. I don't. Words are wind.

My originally thought answer to the question posed was "no". I like these characters regardless of their deeds. One reason I like them is probably their honesty with their failings and the familiarity with the darkness within them. And they still try better. Neither of them lets themselves be defined by their pasts, or others around them. They are capable of restraint, capable of good deeds. To quote Stannis: A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. (ACoK, Davos II.) And yes, they are also capable of evil. Denying that would be disservice to the restraint they - Sandor at least - show. Which is not to say that we should expect anything less of them. Right thing may be hard to do, but it should still be chosen.

I thought of Jaime searching Arya on the Trident while reading the OP and didn't care the least.

I did not know or remember Sandor speaking of killing women. Where does that happen, on the roof of the Red Keep? Anyhow, seeing that piece of information didn't really affect me either.

I do not have much interest in Gerold Dayne, who supposedly struck Myrcella with a sword. So the act of trying to kill girls by itself seemingly does not much affect on my opinion of a literary character.

However, as this made me think it more...

5 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

I'm interested in finding out, if our perception of both characters would change, if Bran and Mycah both had been girls? I find that possibility especially interesting in the case of the Hound, since he later mostly interacts with two girls just a bit younger. Would we feel different about Sandor, if he had rode down 13 year old Mycahyla, while she was running for her life? Would we have felt more afraid for Sansa, when he only shortly after would threaten to kill her as well? Or did we not feel afraid anymore for Arya and Sansa only in hind sight anyway?

I'm uncomfortable with a notion of riding down a defenseless girls. It does stir something within me. I care. Be it just a quirk of my personality, something to do with my personal experiences, or to do with how I see myself and my role as man... well, I guess it's a mix of them. You do not hit* women. If you do, you have already lost. If you do, you should have an excellent reason.

*strike

But that's just feelings. I can feel for Jaime and Sandor as well. They catch my interest. They do have traits I can respect. I'm impressed by their display. The themes present in their arks - lost honor, mercy, forgiveness, concept of knighthood, oaths and their restraints, justice or lack thereof, seeking for something better, and more - are right up to my alley.

So, my answer to this question, "Would your attitude towards the Hound/Jaime change, if Mycah/Bran had been a girl?" is that while my opinion would naturally adjust and my reaction might be more visceral, I probably would still like them both. As said, I like them regardless of what they have done. In fact, in a honest answer to the question, the adrenaline involved and following adjustment seems make me more dogged in my "support" of them. Which is... mildly surprising. And makes the themes of justice and restraint present in their arks all the more important.

tl;dr: Jaime and Sandor "speak" to me in a way that other characters cannot truly attain. Theon may have come close, in ADwD. I do not approve their fell deeds, but l like them all the same, and probably would even if those two particular victims had been girls.

[Damon_Tor]

6 hours ago, frenin said:

Culture and inverted power, things are always viewed worse if the strong does it and not the weak one does it and our own upbringing means that we would see one as horrible as just lift our eyebrows to the second. A woman raping a man is still alien to most in western culture, let alone in other cultures, and to many is more akin to a erotic fantasy rather than a scarry experience.

 

It's silly to think instinct doesn't play a role in how we form our heirachies and the role of sex within those hierarchies.

Sons are more expendable than daughters. You can lose half the males in your tribe and two generations later be back at full strength, but if you lose half the females you might never recover.

Evolutionary speaking, sons are the dice roll, daughters the sure thing. DNA evidence suggests that 80% of females pass on their genes but only 20% of males (but the males who do manage to pass on their genes are much more prolific.) So in a brutal sort of way, you're expected to lose sons: testosterone is a hell of a drug, it gets the boys out there fighting bears and taking life-or-death risks, proving to natural selection their genes are worth passing on. And so men encourage risk taking in their sons while sheltering their daughters. Some of that is cultural to be sure, but much of it is hard-wired, so to speak, instinct.

[Arthur Peres]

I'm not a Jaime supporter, far from it but not really, I would still see it as grow man being abusive towards a child.

I give Jaime the same shit for pushing Bran out of the tower and trying to kill Arya at the trident.

Sandor on the other hand would kind of surprise me, because he seems very rude but still for some reason he protect Sansa, but in the end is a mercenary killing a kid for no reason other than vanity of his employ.

[corbon]

 

8 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

Sandor and Jaime aren't of course good men. 

Sandor and Jaime are the heroes of their own stories!

More seriously, we all have capacity for good and evil. 

8 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

I'm interested in finding out, if our perception of both characters would change, if Bran and Mycah both had been girls?

Not easy to tell for sure, but I doubt it. I think the initial presentation of both is ruthless amoral killers. Boy or girl victim, no real difference.

8 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

I find that possibility especially interesting in the case of the Hound, since he later mostly interacts with two girls just a bit younger. Would we feel different about Sandor, if he had rode down 13 year old Mycahyla, while she was running for her life?

I don't think most people focus on the sex of these character's victims. Victims are victims. 

8 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

1. internalized gender roles/sexism through our own upbringing as modern readers

 2. but also activated heightened gender roles- thinking, because of the culture, that the story takes place in 

3. And we might not be able to dissociate Mycahyla as easily from Sansa and Arya as we could with Mycah, because they are girls as well.            

I think you missed the main reason, supplied by @Damon_Tor. Evolutionary instinct formed over thousands of generations.
But I think the overall victim-ness of their victims overrides this anyway. Child = child > female/male

The rest is over-thought bullshit by self justifying academics - IMO. Not entirely, but largely. 

8 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

Follow up question: Where you guys afraid the Hound would hurt Sansa and Arya during the first read through? Because I was definitely very afraid of that. It was only in hind sight after Arya had left him to die, that I noticed, that he actually had never physically hurt them. If GRRM wanted to create a scary and dangerous character it certainly worked for me.

Not that I recall.

7 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

In the rereads I understood that, but not during the first read.

The words never changed their meanings between readings, just your feelings and how you personally interacted with them. Which might be an interesting self-study in itself.

[Morte]

9 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Did I make any sense?

A lot.

9 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

Quote

Even w/ him killing Mycah. Sandor is so bitter and tortured...

but how did you know that during your first read through? Was I the only dumb one, that was afraid of the Hound? lol

No!

As @kissdbyfire said, it all depends from where you come from, what you have read so far and so on.

For example: It seems to me, that as a historian, I measure the characters in Asoiaf different than many other (as far as I can tell from this forums, at least).

As a reader (I am old ...) I roll my eyes on every stupid cliché (mind you, this is fantasy, so it is bound to have clichés in it, that's not the problem) and every misunderstood borrowed motif/concept from other media/books (till today, this is mostly a problem of the thing-that-shall-not-be-named - I hope it stays that way). While on a personal level I'm much more disturbed by senseless violence and torture, as well as psychological violence/trauma, not justified by the setting [and the historian in me cringes, because a lot of this would have backfired a long time ago even (or especially) in such a setting].

Beside, I have a warm place in my heart for chaotic neutral characters, so the Hound had me with his first interaction with Tyrion.

[Morte]

3 hours ago, corbon said:

Quote

1. internalized gender roles/sexism through our own upbringing as modern readers

 2. but also activated heightened gender roles- thinking, because of the culture, that the story takes place in 

3. And we might not be able to dissociate Mycahyla as easily from Sansa and Arya as we could with Mycah, because they are girls as well.            

I think you missed the main reason, supplied by @Damon_Tor. Evolutionary instinct formed over thousands of generations.
[...]

The rest is over-thought bullshit by self justifying academics - IMO. Not entirely, but largely. 

I have to disagree with this part, because while the biological imperative is present, the cultural solutions to it range from matrilineal structures to women being nothing but cattle on this planet, so the cultural notion is important in this regard. Beside: Even most of the other higher animals don't work solemnly (not even mostly) on instinct alone - it's what you make of it.

Your criticism toward certain academic fields is unfortunately valid, at least partially and for, say, the last twenty years.

 

[Nagini's Neville]

5 hours ago, corbon said:

The words never changed their meanings between readings, just your feelings and how you personally interacted with them. Which might be an interesting self-study in itself.

Nah, I just knew on rereads, that he wouldn't in the end hurt Sansa and Arya physically.

But tbh to just assume, that he would never hurt Sansa is kinda weird to me. Not because he is so evil, but he very unstable and explosive and a lot of the time he is drunk, when he threatens Sansa. Two times he holds blades against her throat. If she had moved during the Blackwater incident, he might have just stabbed her out of instinct. He got some serious psychological issues and anger problems. I don't think it's unreasonable to be afraid, if a very strong man, with a lot of power constantly feels the need to threaten a 12 year old girl, who is completely powerless, a prisoner and not even aggressive towards him. And it is not only the sword/dagger stuff or death threats, but he also say things like "one day, I'll have a song, whether you will it or no."

I didn't feel as a afraid for Arya, because he didn't get as extreme with her and they didn't have those personal identity surrounding conversations, that railed him up so much. I just thought maybe he would give her a beating. To me even on rereads I think it is impossible to know just from his words and actions, that he will never physically hurt Sansa and Arya, since we already know he is capable of violence towards the innocent. The only thing, that has changed is my knowledge, that he won't.

[Nagini's Neville]

31 minutes ago, Morte said:

I have to disagree with this part, because while the biological imperative is present, the cultural solutions to it range from matrilineal structures to women being nothing but cattle on this planet, so the cultural notion is important in this regard. Beside: Even most of the other higher animals don't work solemnly (not even mostly) on instinct alone - it's what you make of it.

Your criticism toward certain academic fields is unfortunately valid, at least partially and for, say, the last twenty years.

 

I mean it is always an interaction between biology and cultural upbringing. It is hard to untangle and people have fought for decades over those issues. In the end it is impossible for us to know, what weighs stronger. But it's true I did forget to mention possible biological reasons for a potential difference in reaction. But just because I wasn't that aware of it in the moment, but it makes sense, I guess.

But tbh since they would stay children no matter the gender, I don't know, if such a "biological instinct" would really weigh that much for us as readers, since I nowadays we are more hardwired to want to protect all children and even in the Middle Ages even if daughters were more protected the death of a son still weighed much heavier for families. Society needed daughters, but single families didn't need or want them. They just cost money and couldn't carry on the family name.

But then Westeros is a very sexist society, with very fixed gender roles and even if that doesn't have an impact on us as readers, it might  have had an impact on the Hound. So when he kills Mycah we don't know yet, if he also would kill young girls. And a lot of readers actually assume, that he might be especially protective of girls, because of the death of his own sister. Of course it wouldn't make him a worse person in our eyes, if he had killed and innocent girl instead of an innocent boy, but I still think it might have had an influence on how we view the potential danger for Sansa and Arya during our fist reading, because we would have known, that he himself has no issues with killing innocent girls.

 

[corbon]

12 hours ago, Morte said:

I have to disagree with this part, because while the biological imperative is present, the cultural solutions to it range from matrilineal structures to women being nothing but cattle on this planet, so the cultural notion is important in this regard. Beside: Even most of the other higher animals don't work solemnly (not even mostly) on instinct alone - it's what you make of it.

The question was what triggers us, if we would feel differently about a girl being killed vs a boy being killed.
I think the biological imperative, driving our western cultural imperatives, would be the main component. I also think that in general we don't think that differently about a girl being killed vs a boy being killed because 'child' being killed is a big enough deal already in our current society and makes boy child vs girl child almost irrelevant.

11 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

But tbh to just assume, that he would never hurt Sansa is kinda weird to me.

Who assumed that? We just weren't afraid of it.
I don;t think I assumed he wouldn't, I just didn't expect he would.

11 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

Not because he is so evil, but he very unstable and explosive and a lot of the time he is drunk, when he threatens Sansa. Two times he holds blades against her throat. If she had moved during the Blackwater incident, he might have just stabbed her out of instinct. He got some serious psychological issues and anger problems. I don't think it's unreasonable to be afraid, if a very strong man, with a lot of power constantly feels the need to threaten a 12 year old girl, who is completely powerless, a prisoner and not even aggressive towards him. And it is not only the sword/dagger stuff or death threats, but he also say things like "one day, I'll have a song, whether you will it or no."

But its not 'constant'. Actually he's more protective than anyone else except Tyrion most of the time. I think thats why there was no fear of him hurting her. Right from the start he always seemed to cut through the bullshit. He was a faithful dog yes, but not an obedient one unless it filled his protector role. So hurting Sansa didn't feel right for him. Even when he was threatening her. It always felt clear that they were just his words, expressing things that were part of his pain, but not who he actually was.

11 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

I didn't feel as a afraid for Arya, because he didn't get as extreme with her and they didn't have those personal identity surrounding conversations, that railed him up so much. I just thought maybe he would give her a beating. To me even on rereads I think it is impossible to know just from his words and actions, that he will never physically hurt Sansa and Arya, since we already know he is capable of violence towards the innocent. The only thing, that has changed is my knowledge, that he won't.

"Knowing it" isn't possible. You basically asked about the feel we got from him. It didn't seem in character for him to actually hurt someone like Sansa, despite his words.

[Lyanna<3Rhaegar]

@Nagini's Neville nice post! 

No, it wouldn't have changed things for me if Bran & Mycah were girls.

But yes! I was scared to death for Sansa my first read through. By the time he was hanging out with Arya I was pretty certain he wouldn't harm her but with Sansa I thought for sure he was going to kill her at some points. 

Like you said, on rereads it's much more clear but initially it was scary. 

[Morte]

22 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

But then Westeros is a very sexist society, with very fixed gender roles and even if that doesn't have an impact on us as readers, it might  have had an impact on the Hound. So when he kills Mycah we don't know yet, if he also would kill young girls. And a lot of readers actually assume, that he might be especially protective of girls, because of the death of his own sister.

As Westeros seems to have broadly the same knightly ideals as the Mediaeval Ages, and seeing that Sandor once believed in them (imho he still thinks it should be like in the songs, it's just that the world isn't, and that's the way it is, and nobody gives a fuck, so why should he? ), he might indeed have more problems with hurting a girl than a boy, especially with the backstory of his sister in mind (but this also doesn't mean that he wouldn't have killed a girl Mycah in this situation).

10 hours ago, corbon said:

I also think that in general we don't think that differently about a girl being killed vs a boy being killed because 'child' being killed is a big enough deal already in our current society and makes boy child vs girl child almost irrelevant.

Agree.

[Lord Varys]

It makes no sense to imagine that Sandor wouldn't hurt Sansa. The reason why she deludes herself into this is that he has the guts to resist the royal command to strike her. That makes him a hero in Sansa's warped view and helps her develop her Stockholm Syndrome crush on him. In fact, the whole thing could easily have been a charade to mess with Sansa's head by means of manipulating her into trusting Sansa because he wouldn't want to strike her - the 'good cop, bad cop' game. What kind of creature Sandor Clegane is can be seen by what he did to Mycah - if he can do that, one of the ugliest crimes depicted in ASoIaF, then he can do a similar thing to Sansa, too. He can do it to any child.

He also threatened to kill her while she was the betrothed of the Crown Prince and the daughter of the Hand.

The reason why Sandor plays nice around Sansa is that he sees he has a weird obsession with her ... but he is like the 'nice stalker' who suddenly shows up in your bed in the middle of the night and wants to fuck you because he has some kind of identity crisis. That is all disgusting and scary as hell. As is the fact that the guy always approaches and talks to Sansa when he is drunk.

Every sane woman should know that a brute who murdered the friend of her sister shouldn't be the guy to trust when he says 'I'm never going to hurt you'. Riiight.

Jaime is a great character, one of my favorites, in fact, because he is narcissist with high points on the psychopathy checklist whose inner voice makes him so entertaining and funny. This guy is so well-written that you get sucked in and don't realize how everything he does is all about him and him alone.

Cersei is, by comparison, a much more humane character considering the fact she knows and experiences fear all the time (just think of the terrible nightmare she has in her first chapter) ... Jaime mostly walks through his story going by the 'There is no man like me' routine. The guy has to lose his hand to understand that life and the world aren't a game designed to entertain Jaime Lannister. Even then there are no detailed descriptions about him being afraid for his life, his future, his children (who he doesn't really care about, anyway), etc.

And once his image of himself and his place in the world start to crack he is consumed by petty jealousy.

[frenin]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

with high points on the psychopathy checklist whose

No.

 

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Jaime mostly walks through his story going by the 'There is no man like me' routine. The guy has to lose his hand to understand that life and the world aren't a game designed to entertain Jaime Lannister.

That's the Kingslayer persona Jaime adopts to protect himself from the backlash of Aerys murder.

 

 

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Even then there are no detailed descriptions about him being afraid for his life,

Jaime does not fear death.

 

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

his future

We know he wants to change it.

 

 

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

his children (who he doesn't really care about, anyway), etc.

If he doesn't care about them why would he be fundamentally scared for them??

 

 

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And once his image of himself and his place in the world start to crack he is consumed by petty jealousy.

Jealousy sure but petty?? Cersei and him made a serious commitment in his pov.

 

 

 

[Nagini's Neville]

17 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

@Nagini's Neville nice post! 

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! I feel a bit stupid about it now tbh lol. Of course it wouldn't matter to people and even if it made a difference just asking probably wouldn't be the way to find out about. You would need two different large enough samples of subjects reading the same story, just with different genders for the victims and afterwards filling out a questionnaire about it. But of course you never do interesting studies like that while studying psych lol

The idea was born out of a conversation with my friend, who is btw the biggest Victarion fan there is - so he can't be trusted lol. We were talking about how GRRM said he gets letters from women, saying they have a romantic attraction to Jaime, the Hound and Theon.

He gave his very judgmental analysis about the people, who are attracted to Theon (he's a psych student lol) and then went on to say, that Sandor and Jaime would not be half as popular, if they had (tried to) killed a girl instead of a boy. That got me thinking, if there was truth to that.

I knew for myself (at least consciously) it wouldn't make a difference- a child is a child, an innocent person, is an innocent person. During my first read I was already as afraid of the Hound as I could get lol- and a big part of that was of course, because he had killed Mycah. And when he told Sansa he had killed other children and women as well, I really saw no reason why he would be above hurting/killing Sansa.

With Jaime I always felt it was absolutely clear why he pushed Bran and it wouldn't have mattered, who saw them, he would have pushed anyone, regardless the age or gender. The fact that he pushed a boy instead of a girl wasn't the thing that made him more sympathetic to me, as if it had been otherwise, but the reason why he did it. Because even though it's in the end inexcusable and one of the worst thing to do tbh I wouldn't be 100% sure, what I would be capable of to save the people I love the most. Hopefully I never find out. And I feel like I have a general rule, that a child should never be harmed for the well-being of an adult, no matter who that adult is. Ahh, I really hate(love) asoif for all of the moral dilemmas.

17 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

But yes! I was scared to death for Sansa my first read through. By the time he was hanging out with Arya I was pretty certain he wouldn't harm her but with Sansa I thought for sure he was going to kill her at some points. 

Like you said, on rereads it's much more clear but initially it was scary.

I'm so glad, that I wasn't the only one  I think he was scary as f and knowing about his traumatic past didn't really change that for me, just gave a reason.

[Putin]

Hound is with Stannis and Arya  my favorite character , Mycah being girl would not change that , he already admited he killed woman before.

Same with Jaime I really like him but only issue I have with him is that he fucks his own sisiter. If were not for that I would consider him extremely decent man.

[frenin]

8 minutes ago, Putin said:

If were not for that I would consider him extremely decent man.

Really, Extremely decent??

[Nagini's Neville]

19 hours ago, corbon said:

The question was what triggers us, if we would feel differently about a girl being killed vs a boy being killed.
I think the biological imperative, driving our western cultural imperatives, would be the main component. I also think that in general we don't think that differently about a girl being killed vs a boy being killed because 'child' being killed is a big enough deal already in our current society and makes boy child vs girl child almost irrelevant.

I agree. I explained to Lyanna in #34 how this idea came to me. And tbh in hindsight it wasn't the best idea for a thread.

19 hours ago, corbon said:

Who assumed that?

Some other posters said so

19 hours ago, corbon said:

We just weren't afraid of it.

I guess I just was, because I really like Sansa and I didn't want to see her get hurt. And in general don't want to see children get hurt- also am afraid for shireen, monster, Rickon, Myrc and Tommen, and was afraid for Arya a lot and Edric Storm. 

19 hours ago, corbon said:

I don;t think I assumed he wouldn't, I just didn't expect he would.

Alright, I guess for me as a non english speaker that is almost the same. I'm not too precise in my choice of verbs 

19 hours ago, corbon said:

He was a faithful dog yes, but not an obedient one unless it filled his protector role.

Hm, don't think Sandor thought killing Mycah would have been necessary to protect Joffrey or the man, who threw shit at Joffrey during the riot. Indeed it would have been better for Joffrey, if Sandor had stayed by his side. I'd say he just obeyed Joffrey of the most part  (and I think Joff knew not to ask sandor to abuse ppl, since they had the other KG for that- sort of in line with what Qhorin told Jon), except when is came to beating Sansa, but then Joffrey also never insisted on him doing it.

19 hours ago, corbon said:

But its not 'constant'.

an exaggeration on my part not to be taken literately  three death threads, one dagger, one sword, other verbal threats and keeping on physically restraining her, whenever they were alone and not letting her go right away, when she asked him to was kinda enough for me. Especially because of the power dynamic. It seemed like overkill on his part

19 hours ago, corbon said:

Actually he's more protective than anyone else except Tyrion most of the time. I think thats why there was no fear of him hurting her.

yes, but an abuser can be protective of you and still beat you up at the same time. 

19 hours ago, corbon said:

It always felt clear that they were just his words, expressing things that were part of his pain, but not who he actually was.

That's definitely how I interpret his behavior now as well, so congrats for catching on to that right from the start!

[Nagini's Neville]

17 minutes ago, Putin said:

Same with Jaime I really like him but only issue I have with him is that he fucks his own sisiter. If were not for that I would consider him extremely decent man.

is it because it's Cersei or mainly because it's incest?

[Hugorfonics]

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

What kind of creature Sandor Clegane is can be seen by what he did to Mycah - if he can do that, one of the ugliest crimes depicted in ASoIaF, then he can do a similar thing to Sansa, too. He can do it to any child.

But he cant. Joff/the king said kill Mycha, so he did. Later Joff the king said beat Sansa, he didnt.

Call it a weird obsession or call it SanSan, something about Sansa changed him. 

 

I never thought hed hurt her, the strange shared feelings between them was obvious. I did think he was going to turn Arya into KL though and later thought he hit her with the sharp part of the axe. 

23 minutes ago, Putin said:

issue I have with him is that he fucks his own sisiter.

Those are my thoughts too, that perverse business of leaving the world together is sick and twisted, fucking weirdos.

[Nagini's Neville]

4 minutes ago, Hugorfonics said:

But he cant. Joff/the king said kill Mycha, so he did. Later Joff the king said beat Sansa, he didnt.

Call it a weird obsession or call it SanSan, something about Sansa changed him. 

 

I never thought hed hurt her, the strange shared feelings between them was obvious.

I definitely thought Sansa had affected him very much, but still didn't think, that would have for sure stopped him from hurting her. Maybe even made it more likely, since she seemed to trigger a lot of emotional stuff for him.

15 minutes ago, Hugorfonics said:

I did think he was going to turn Arya into KL though and later thought he hit her with the sharp part of the axe. 

I was more sure he wouldn't kill Arya, but know a lot of ppl thought he had actually killed her during the RW