Descriptions of Male vs. Female Characters: Another Sexism Thread

[MyDogIsNamedDanerys]

Yes, I was referring to the Lady incident. Say, what would have happened if Jaime, or the Hound, or any of the Lannister guardsmen would have found Arya first and killed her, according to Cerseis orders?

Actually I think what would have happened is that Robert being his usual weak self would side with Cersei (I'm a kingdom in debt to her father etc etc), but that Ned and co would go back north and hole up. I doubt there would have been a war. In that context it would be win-win for Cersei since she doesn't want those Starks in KL anyway.

So... if only Arya was dead, so many would have lived! ;) j/k j/k

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Actually I think what would have happened is that Robert being his usual weak self would side with Cersei (I'm a kingdom in debt to her father etc etc), but that Ned and co would go back north and hole up. I doubt there would have been a war. In that context it would be win-win for Cersei since she doesn't want those Starks in KL anyway.

So... if only Arya was dead, so many would have lived! ;) j/k j/k

Maybe. The North peacefully seceeding would have been the best outcome for the Lannisters. But Stark, Tully, Arryn and Baratheon have fought a successfull rebellion caused by something very similar just 15 years ago. And Arya is closely related to three of them. It was a gigantic risk, for virtually nothing. Pure hubris on Cerseis part.

[Tini]

And Robert may be weak, but he is also given to rages. He might have done something drastic about Arya's death, especially if Cersei gloated about it. And not only to the guards that killed the girl.

[Shaggydog Stark]

Actually I think what would have happened is that Robert being his usual weak self would side with Cersei (I'm a kingdom in debt to her father etc etc), but that Ned and co would go back north and hole up. I doubt there would have been a war. In that context it would be win-win for Cersei since she doesn't want those Starks in KL anyway.

So... if only Arya was dead, so many would have lived! ;) j/k j/k

Do you really believe that Ned would have gone back north and holed up after his daughter was murdered? The same guy who raised an army in rebellion after his brother and father were murdered? I don't think so. Arya's murder would have definitely led to war imho.

[MyDogIsNamedDanerys]

Do you really believe that Ned would have gone back north and holed up after his daughter was murdered? The same guy who raised an army in rebellion after his brother and father were murdered? I don't think so. Arya's murder would have definitely led to war imho.

Ned only fought back against Aerys because he demanded Ned's head and that of his friend, Robert. Ned did not raise his banners in vengeance then, and I don't think he would now. Ned (and Jon) raised their banners to protect Robert.

Ned's just not the vengeful type, and unlike Robb he knows the cost of war is too great to take lightly. He would be happy to fight the Lannisters if they decided to attack but he wouldn't make the first move.

[Queen Cersei I]

I don't think GRRM is consciously sexist, but the treatment of Lollys as opposed to, say, Hodor is a mite disturbing. Lollys gets gang-raped and it gets played for laughs. Hodor never gets that sort of authorial mockery.

It's twisted that readers think that was played straight for laughs. I always thought that scene was a way of revealing how nasty and hypocritical Tyrion can be... but so many readers are SO pro-Tyrion that they figure it's meant to be funny...

Really? Because, while it's entirely possible that (as you, and most of the other posters who are capable of feeling actual human empathy with this character claim), that the text is presenting Lolys as sympathetic and hard done by and caricaturing (rather than agreeing with) the way she is treated by her society, a few things about her presentation strike me as odd. First, there is the fact that Lolys appears to be never humanized and next to nothing is done to drive the horrendousness of her situation home, or encourage readers to truly feel for her. She is mocked by all of the more “realistic,” characters who come into contact with her, ignored by the “good” ones. Oh, I know, I know, the norms of Westeros. And yet, she seems to be presented with little true empathy or humanization. Her horrific gang rape is mentioned almost in passing. (“Tanda Stokeworth’s daughter was found wandering around kings landing naked, having surrendered her maidenhead to a crowd of men.”) And at times, she is presented in away that honestly seems as though she is being satirized. And yes, I know, I know, she’s a minor character. But the fact is, in these books I’ve frequently seen the author manage to humanize and create real sympathy for characters who are even more minor than Lolys. And yet it is never done with Lolys herself.

More significantly, though, are the character descriptions of Lolys in the apprendixes of AFFC and ADWD. In AFFC, GRRM describes Lolys as “small of with, but great with child.” Then, in the appendix of ADWD, Lolys son, the result of a public gang rape, is described as “Tyrion Tanner, of the hundred fathers.” Now, someone claimed that here, the author was writing “in the style of Westeros”—that is, describing things as the people of Westeros saw them. However, this does not seem to be the case in the case of people like Gilly, whose child is regarded as an abomination. GRRM writes, “the son of her father, an ‘abomination.’ The quote marks seem to indicate that GRRM knows this is what people call Gily’s kid in Westeros, but that he does not agree with it. We get no such disclaimers with Lolys.

[MyDogIsNamedDanerys]

Really? Because, while it's entirely possible that (as you, and most of the other posters who are capable of feeling actual human empathy with this character claim), that the text is presenting Lolys as sympathetic and hard done by and caricaturing (rather than agreeing with) the way she is treated by her society, a few things about her presentation strike me as odd. First, there is the fact that Lolys appears to be never humanized and next to nothing is done to drive the horrendousness of her situation home, or encourage readers to truly feel for her. She is mocked by all of the more “realistic,” characters who come into contact with her, ignored by the “good” ones.

You have a point, but I think the issue is that all the negativity we see comes from Tyrion's incredibly biased, extremely sexist, privelidged PoV. It reflects Tyrion's monstrosity and inability to sympathize with Lollys, not GRRMs.

The other perspective we get on her is from "good" character Sansa, who genuinely pities her. You are right Sansa does not dwell on Lolly's suffering but she does think about it a time or two, and always with sympathy.

Re: The appendicies I've never looked there so that's quite interesting. Calling her son "of the hundred fathers" is dickish, and reflects a Tyrion/Bronn perspective. I'm not sure we should put too much on where GRRM chooses to use quotation marks, though...

[Shaggydog Stark]

Ned only fought back against Aerys because he demanded Ned's head and that of his friend, Robert. Ned did not raise his banners in vengeance then, and I don't think he would now. Ned (and Jon) raised their banners to protect Robert.

Ned's just not the vengeful type, and unlike Robb he knows the cost of war is too great to take lightly. He would be happy to fight the Lannisters if they decided to attack but he wouldn't make the first move.

I disagree. He could only call the banners after he became lord of Winterfell which was only after his father and brother were murdered. Jon Arryn started it, but it takes time to travel from the Eyrie to the north and Ned did raise his banners as soon as he went north. There is nothing more important to Ned than family. If Cersei had had Arya killed it would have just started the war sooner then it happened.

Ned's not the vengeful type true, but he is the justice seeking type which is the reason he went south in the first place to discover who killed Jon Arryn and to seek justice for it. I think it would apply doubly to his own daughter. It's different when it's your own child MDIND.

[Shaggydog Stark]

I have to agree on Lolys. She is made a joke of from the very beginning when she is introduced as a character by LF. He made all sorts of japes about her to Ned. She is not treated well as a character.

However, I think MDIND also has a point. It depends on who is talking about her. LF, Tyrion, Bronn, Shae, etc. are not very sympathetic people but when Sansa sees her she has some empathy.

[Rakka]

Thinking again of Ursula Le Guin, I can imagine that quite a lot of what she writes would get roundly criticised by feminist critics if it were written by, say, George Martin.

The hero of The Dispossessed, Shevek, attempts to rape a woman while on Urras, yet this is portrayed as simply a cultural misunderstanding. He remains a sympathetic character. Rakam, a protagonist in Four Ways to Forgiveness, is repeatedly sexually abused by a lesbian, while still a child. In Solitude, male homosexual characters are depicted either as sadistic rapists or as effeminates.

Talk about people looking for something to be offended over... It's been a while since I read the Dispossessed, but IIRC there weren't any "no" signals until things started to get, shall we say, horizontal. Rakam's sexual abuse is noted as such by characters and not portrayed as a neutral thing other than in "boy, slavery sucks" content - compare and contrast Shae's "she's just got a baby in her belly, why does she have to be such a whiner about it" after Lollys has been raped by half a town.

As for Solitude... I'd say that since there aren't any on screen male homosexuals, and the abuse of boys is happening in environment similar to the castle in the "Matter of Seggri", which is of course just another case of gays being evil... only wait, no, only if you totally blank out on the part that consensual homosexual relationships are either a norm (for females) or horribly punished (by the same guys rape the younger boys in the castle). If anything, on Solitude gays get the better deal - they can settle pretty much where they want because hey, no competition over women for the settled man. It sucks to be a man in MANY of Le Guin's worlds. Not the least on those that seem at a first glance to be awesome to be a man in, like Seggri. So you want education? That's girly, Real Men do sports instead.