Reading Women In Westoros

[Winter's Knight]

An interesting discussion broke out on the Sansa threads and I think it merits a larger discussion.

Because I cannot write long, detailed analysis, I am (shamelessly) boring the words of better posters:

Queen Cersei I

A brief note on the Sansa/ Arya dichotomy, and how I feel it illustrates the continuing problems with how women are portrayed in literature:

Recently, I was reading a critique of the book Dracula. The author complains that Victorian heroines are largely sweet, passive, maternal, and morally flawless. He then launches into an attack on Lucy, a minor female character in the book, castigating her for everything from lacking independence (using her inherited riches rather than working for a living—despite the fact that it’s 1897), to being vain and frivolous, to (and this is where his most vicious, angry criticism comes in)—being a flirt and, as he puts it, “a tease.” He speaks with anger and disgust of how Lucy enjoys trifling with men (which naturally makes her insipid, nasty, and shallow), how her secret excitement at getting three separate marriage proposals proves her moral degeneracy, and then proceeds to dub her “a cock tease.”

He then reviews the character of Mina Harker, whom he dubs strong, independent (she works before she is married), not “a tease” like Lucy, and therefore good.

What really cracks me up here is that the author of the piece starts by criticizing the ridiculous standards that Victorian heroines have to live up to, then proceeds to castigate a character for not living up to our current standards that female characters must live up to.

It’s strange, but I think there’s a real difference in how men and women are portrayed in literature, and that this is a pretty timeless issue. It seems that while “the virtuous/ perfect hero” is something that has plagued novels and stories, that men have, more so than women, gotten to be complex and multifaceted. But with women it seems as though there has always been a set of standards—moral and physical—that they must live up to if they are going to be portrayed sympathetically. For instance, it’s easy for us to look back upon the idealized heroines of the Victorian period and laugh with scorn; it’s fantastic we don’t have any such standards anymore.

Or don’t we? Because just as female heroines in the Victorian era had to be sweet, unaggressive, maternal, selfless, passive, and perfectly sexually pure, it seems that heroines in our days must be strong, assertive, able to protect themselves in all situations, be sexual but never willing to use sex to get ahead, compassionate, hardworking but not overtly ambitious for power, and, generally, (if they’re not going to be boring) must be spunky/ outspoken as well. Thus female characters like Lucy from Dracula are pretty much disgusting and horrible, because they fail at what females (in our own society) “should be” according to common but unspoken beliefs. Lucy is bad because she is overtly feminine; loves feminine things; enjoys male attention and works actively to get it; and is not financially independent/ hardworking. Mina is good because she is selfless, strong, independent, intelligent but not aggressive, and most of all, does not show any silly “feminine” weaknesses or vanities, like Lucy the “cock tease.”

My reason for going into this is the following: I think this continuing notion of what women “should” be is something that continues to very much color how Sansa, as a character, is received and spoken of by the audience. One of the most common things said about Sansa is that she is “wrong.” She doesn’t try to escape; she doesn’t mouth off to her captors; she doesn’t turn around and deliver a perfect drop kick to Joffrey’s skull. She also likes dresses and has no desire to fight. She is therefore boring, shallow, conventional, and unsuccessful, not living up to what a literary heroine (or a 21rst century female, it is implied) should be. I’ve even heard one poster proclaim that to like Sansa is “false and treason against the women’s movement.”

The thing that most irks me, besides the unfair characterization of Sansa as passive, weak and uninteresting, criticisms that are disproved by the briefest looks at the text itself—is the continuing sexism of the idea that there is a certain way females “should” be. If they are going to be good, heroic, interesting, and worth the readers time.

The Sansa/ Arya dichotomy is a rather hilarious example of this. First, a disclaimer—I’m fine if anyone here dislikes Arya—or Sansa, for that matter—for their own reasons. (Though for the record, I adore both characters.) However, I find the constant juxtaposition of the two—one is either a fan of one or the other, you see, one cannot be both—to be ridiculous. Arguing (frequently) that one sister is good and interesting, the other either psychotic (Arya) or utterly boring (Sansa), people act as though liking one girl or the other is a necessary choice between life views. One must either stand for Arya and all she represents, or Sansa and all she represents. One cannot like them both, and whenever one choses a “team” one is not simply picking a character, but voicing opinions about one’s sociopolitical views of what women “should” be.

I think this is totally sexist, because frankly, it’s never been done with the guys. As far as I’ve seen, they've never been praised or rejected according to how they corresponded or didn’t correspond to their societies ideals of masculinity, and how they’ve rebelled against or followed them. (Or how they correspond to a certain set of stifling criteria as to what constitutes “a good man.”) And yet nearly all the female characters seem to be judged by these criteria.

In the end, the “good vs. bad” female thing depresses me, especially since is generally accompanied by a passive/ active or tomboy/ conventional girly girl thing. It seem that some define characters so much by whether or not they rebel against some of their societies conventions for femininity that they cannot see the true characters of the females in question. Brienne, for instance, strikes me as the closest parallel to Sansa in the book. Like Sansa, she loves music, songs, beautiful things, and once loved dressing up in pretty dresses before people informed her she was ugly. Like Sansa, she is idealistic and morally strong enough to continue to do the right thing even after her ideals are painfully crushed one by one. Like Sansa, she is strongly impressed by male beauty (something that I see as natural and human, a character quirk rather than a moral failing.) Like Sansa (and unlike countless males in these books) she remains compassionate and does not use the horrific things she’s been through to excuse her own cruelty and moral failing. Brienne pretty much is Sansa, only with less beauty, far greater height, and physical combat skills. Yet this comparison is seldom made (though both are frequently dubbed, unfairly, imo, “boring”) because Brienne fights and Sansa doesn’t, therefore they have nothing in common.

I also think there are some remaining ideals today about what is acceptable female behavior, a few of which GRRM quite vigorously (but subtly) enforces. Unlike the 19^th century girls, females today are allowed to be sexually active. However, this still comes with a rule list of it’s own for “good” and “bad” female sexual behavior. Foremost amongst these rules is not using sex to get ahead or manipulate people. Though men are frequently shown doing this (James Bond, or Littlefinger in these novels—who wasn’t portrayed as “good,” but did not get 1/10^th of the scorn or demonization for using sex to manipulate people that Cersei does) and come across as cool, suave, and sexy, if a female does the same you can bet she is either a. A villain (usually) or b. A tragically misguided girl who must learn a very special lesson before the story is through.

There is also a great deal of ambivalence regarding women actively wanting power. Cersei is one of the few females who wants it for it’s own sake, and this is very much a part of her demonization. Yes, an issue is clearly that Cersei does not know how to use power. However, her wanting it in itself is portrayed as corrupt and “Unnatural”, and her incompetence in having power (after she’s wanted it so much) can be seen in a certain light as a didactic enforcement of this message.

One thing that GRRM seems to add to the list of things that “good” females simply do not do, is obeying and differing to their patriarch. (Assuming their patriarch is not evil or batshit crazy.) When females disobey their father’s the result is almost always misery and disaster; the father’s are always the wiser and have the right of it. Such females are either intensely demonized and portrayed with no sympathy (Cersei, Lysa, a few others); or (more rarely) portrayed as good but foolish and woefully misguided, whose actions have wrought great havoc on numerous people (Arrianne, Sansa, Lyanna—the last who comes the closest to getting something approaching real sympathy for her choices, but does not quite get there.)

This has to do with Sansa because she is generally classified as “weak”, though her most criticized act was profoundly aggressive, forthright, rebellious, and brave. Interestingly, the same people who castigate Sansa for passivity profess to loathe her for “betraying her father,” something the feminist Arya would never do. IMO, this is in part due to reader prejudice, in part due to GRRM’s own predilections and portrayals of “proper female behavior.” Though these books are generally accepted as blatantly feminist, when one looks in certain areas the truth is much muddier. Sure, GRRM is supremely feminist in his glorification of warrior females and his earnest protestation that women should be able to fight as much as men. However, in addition to issues involving women and power and women using their sexuality as a weapon, GRRM’s portrayal of females disobeying their fathers and taking their lives into their own hands (when it’s an issue of choices/ power rather than simply fighting physically) is quite conservative. Few women who disobey their patriarch are given true sympathy, and Sansa’s doing so is shown as disastrous, on many levels. She is declaimed within the book for this action; and the author himself has said in interviews that she should be held culpable for disobeying her great patriarch and going to Cersei.

In the end, I’m pretty fed up with the Arya/ Sansa dichotomy; and the considerably harsher treatment all female characters seem to get by the fandom. It’s as though every female has to achieve a certain quota of desirable female characteristics in order to be liked and enjoyed. Why can’t the female characters simply be themselves, with all the failings, personal flaws, and limitations that that entails? It seems to me that in the end, we (as a society on the whole) are as biased as to what constitutes an “acceptable” female heroine as they were in the Victorian era. The list of personal characteristics is very different, but the censoriousness and insistence on certain moral qualities remain the same. Really, I suspect that a hundred years from now, they’ll look back on us and mock our idea of “good” women every bit as we do the Victorian’s feminine ideal today.

Will female characters ever be allowed to be themselves? Are they doomed to always be forced to measure up to a certain set of ideals; or rebel against them? I wonder.

Counterpoint:

Former Lord of Winterfell

My reason for going into this is the following: I think this continuing notion of what women “should” be is something that continues to very much color how Sansa, as a character, is received and spoken of by the audience. One of the most common things said about Sansa is that she is “wrong.” She doesn’t try to escape; she doesn’t mouth off to her captors; she doesn’t turn around and deliver a perfect drop kick to Joffrey’s skull. She also likes dresses and has no desire to fight. She is therefore boring, shallow, conventional, and unsuccessful, not living up to what a literary heroine (or a 21rst century female, it is implied) should be. I’ve even heard one poster proclaim that to like Sansa is “false and treason against the women’s movement.”

The thing that most irks me, besides the unfair characterization of Sansa as passive, weak and uninteresting, criticisms that are disproved by the briefest looks at the text itself—is the continuing sexism of the idea that there is a certain way females “should” be. If they are going to be good, heroic, interesting, and worth the readers time.

People have difference standards for what constitutes weakness or passivity, so it is rather difficult to pretend that the text definitively disproves that regarding Sansa.

But it has absolutely nothing to do with a preconception of how a woman, in particular, should act. There's Arya, Brienne and Asha, all of whom don't fit the usual female stereotype. None are passive or weak, though I personally find Asha a bit uninteresting. Then there's the marvelous Queen of Thrones wielding a completely different type of power as a woman than those preceding three. And then Danys, Margaery, Cersei, Melisandre, Catelyn....I don't see expectations of a particular mold for how a woman "should be". Maybe people just don't like the way Sansa is, and it's not about her failing to adhere to some single, particularized patriarchal construct or similar feminist b.s. There were plenty of other ways she could have reacted to her situation -- some people just didn't like the particularly way she chose to react. Dreaming about being kissed isn't exactly productive.

I think this is totally sexist, because frankly, it’s never been done with the guys. As far as I’ve seen, they've never been praised or rejected according to how they corresponded or didn’t correspond to their societies ideals of masculinity, and how they’ve rebelled against or followed them. (Or how they correspond to a certain set of stifling criteria as to what constitutes “a good man.”) And yet nearly all the female characters seem to be judged by these criteria.

I'm sorry, I just disagree with that. As I pointed out, there are female characters of many different "types" who are liked by readers, and the same applies to male characters. And there are some male characters that aren't liked as well. I like Sam, but damn, I was really sick of his whining and weakness early on. I didn't expect him to fit into a stereotypical warrior mode, but I didn't like the curl up and die personality either. When that improved, I liked Sam.

I think it comes down to people being okay with different personality types of "roles", for women or for men. But what most readers do want is for however characters choose to play the game, be good or at least interesting. Add something different. And frankly, I think it's condescending to imply as you have that criticisms of Sansa as weak, passive and uninteresting are contradicted by the text. There is an inherently subjective component to how each of us judges different scenes, etc. in the text, and what they say about personality. A scene one person views as showing great strength, another may see as of little real significance. To argue that one view is more correct than the other, in many cases, assumes an objective standard that simply does not exist.

Why can’t the female characters simply be themselves, with all the failings, personal flaws, and limitations that that entails?

This...I don't understand at all. Under what circumstances is it okay to say "I don't like that character" or "I don't like her personality"?. It seems the "she's just being herself" excuse shuts of all criticism, and really means we can't even have preferences between characters because again, they're all just "being themselves". It's like handing out nothing but "participation ribbons" so as not to judge anyone.

[voodooqueen126]

This...I don't understand at all. Under what circumstances is it okay to say "I don't like that character" or "I don't like her personality"?. It seems the "she's just being herself" excuse shuts of all criticism, and really means we can't even have preferences between characters because again, they're all just "being themselves". It's like handing out nothing but "participation ribbons" so as not to judge anyone.

This I really find important: I hate the whole "don't judge, don't criticise" movement, because it basically inhibits personal growth, as well as being incredibly dumb.

So for me, this means that I have legitimate reasons to find Tyrion immoral and dislakeable, even if he is just being himself.

[Lady Hodor]

Is this born of my "Why is Sansa so helpless all the time?" Thread? Sorry if it got out of hand, I haven't looked at it in a while.

And I don't think GRRM tries to present any "Good" or "Bad" women, just as he doesn't do for men. Everyone is grey, flawed, and human.

And yeah, fair enough about the Arya/Sansa comparrison.

[Winter's Knight]

Is this born of my "Why is Sansa so helpless all the time?" Thread? Sorry if it got out of hand, I haven't looked at it in a while.

And I don't think GRRM tries to present any "Good" or "Bad" women, just as he doesn't do for men. Everyone is grey, flawed, and human.

And yeah, fair enough about the Arya/Sansa comparrison.

I was supposed to make the thread ages ago-this shoulespawn out a series which will eventually cover the other women as well.

[Lady Hodor]

I was supposed to make the thread ages ago-this shoulespawn out a series which will eventually cover the other women as well.

Sounds good. I've always wanted to figure out the Tyrell women, they've always been a mystery.

[voodooqueen126]

Sounds good. I've always wanted to figure out the Tyrell women, they've always been a mystery.

I would say the reason Lady Olenna is able to be such a wonderful wit-her clever comments to Sansa on Joffrey's wedding day, that Tyrion found so shocking and subversive. Is that her power rests on her son, rather than her husband.

I think when Olenna was young, she was probably terribly polite and courteous,like Sansa, though she was able to manipulate her way out of marrying a Targaryen. Yet after she had Mace, she had it made: her power no longer rested upon her sexual relationship with a man (and such a man will only listen to women they love, and they will love women who are kind and courteous), but rather her status as a mother. Since children will love their mothers even after their mother spanks and disciplines them (like Harry Harlow monkeys, but less extreme) it is no longer necessary to be incredibly nice, courteous and polite to everyone, since a son will probably love his mother anyway. Thus I think after Olenna gave birth to Mace, she was allowed to express her true, snarky personality.

Perhaps when Sansa is Olenna's age, she too will be able to take delight in being snarky, but given her present situation such fun and snark/expressing her true opinions, is a long way off.

[Ser Flowers]

I am fine with readers criticizing and judging characters as individuals, but I just hate when sex is brought into the mix. I completely understand why Sansa never does anything to escape or fight back, I mean she just watched her dad get his head cut off by the people who are keeping her prisoner. Not everyone can be the ideal "brave" and "heroic" person. Thats what I love about these books, GRRM makes it as close to real life as possible. Just because he creates characters with different personalities does not make it sexist. Is it sexist when he wrote Sam, who openly admits to being a coward? Is it sexist when he writes about Cersei making numerous mistakes? No, because for every example of them I can bring up and opposite example of a character in the same sex.

[butterbumps!]

@ Winter's Knight

Excellent topic for discussion. Is there where you're thinking to post our summary essays about Cat, Lysa and Brienne, or are you and Lyanna still considering a separate "mother maiden crone" oriented thread? (I saw something mentioned in the Pawn to Player, but wanted to be sure :cool4: )

[The Last Reyne]

One can criticize without being sexist,racist, agist, or any other type of -ist. Sometimes I think we have become too sensitive of a society.

[Queen Cersei I]

This...I don't understand at all. Under what circumstances is it okay to say "I don't like that character" or "I don't like her personality"?. It seems the "she's just being herself" excuse shuts of all criticism, and really means we can't even have preferences between characters because again, they're all just "being themselves". It's like handing out nothing but "participation ribbons" so as not to judge anyone.

Okay, now I'm pretty scared that I'm going to get reamed for this post, but let me clarify a few thing:

1. The "when can female characters simply be free to be themselves" was by no means meant to shut out all criticism of female characters because they are all "just being themselves." To understand it as such goes rather against my point.

My point was that it seems that, in our age, we can see how women in the past in literature have been idealized, and drawn always to measure up to (or, rarely, fight against) a certain "feminine ideal." Throughout the ages, this ideal has been scrupulously chaste, beautiful, young, utterly devoted, and rather devoid of personality. More recently, in the Victorian Era, it took on the ideal of "the angel in the house." Look at virtually any piece of literature from the Victorian Era, and you are apt to see a heroine who is pure, morally upright, selfless, passive, endlessly maternal, caring, modest, and brilliant, gorgeous, and charming without realizing a single one of her virtues. Even the digressions against this type often lend credence to the rule-- Thackery created Becky Sharp as selfish, opportunistic, and utterly lovable, but was quick to call Vanity Fair "A Story without a hero" (clearly selfish Becky didn't fit the bill for heroine); the unusually active, assertive, and passionate Jane Eyre is nevertheless constantly excusing her passion and anger under diatribes that "women feel just as men do, and this isn't bad, etc.", something that it seems no male hero would have had to done; Lady Audley commits bigamy and murders people, but in the end, it was all, you know, because she was crazy and couldn't control herself (why else would a delicate little woman act wickedly? Clearly insanity is to blame, and she cannot control herself!)

From our 21rst century perspective, its easier to see the ridiculousness of perfect literary heroines like Ester bloody Summerson. But I feel as though even in our more liberated society, there are a set of criteria that many females in literature must arise to if they are going to be portrayed positively. Thus, regardless of whether a work of historical fiction is set in 1900 or 1400, the positively drawn females will nearly all be strong, independent, and embody many virtues we praise in women today.

The "when can women be free to be themselves", therefore, was a hypothetical question. It was intended to put forth my frustration with the continuing set of ideals that women must live up to in literature if they are going to be considered "good."

Is this not also true for males? I'd go out on a limb and say no-- not as it is for females. Looking at how women have been portrayed in literature in the past this is easy to see; looking at our literature today it is more difficult, since beliefs about what women should be sort of surround us and are instilled into us from the moment of birth.

Of course, this is a controversial issue, and some will no doubt think I'm merely crazy, which is fine. :laugh:

Anyway, my point was not really that female characters should be immune to criticism so long as they are "being themselves" (or something.) That would be laughably ridiculous. It was simply a question of whether we as a society are ever going to rid ourselves of the impossible ideal of what a woman "should" be, and realize that there are all different ways to be one.

And, to a lesser extent, perhaps except a greater amount of qualities in females, not automatically seeing any female who wants power for itself as automatically evil, for instance.

[ARYa_Nym]

I must say I'm not so sure on Arya never betraying her father part. It's brought up many times in the Rhaegar/Lyanna threads how Arya wouldn't run away like that and there was even a stupid thread once asking if Lyanna deserved to be buried in Winterfell's crypts because of how she betrayed the Starks. I think part of the reason that Rhaegar may have appealed to Lyanna is because he gave her an outlet to get away from her duty to her family.

If Arya didn't want to become a lady I think that was the only choice that she would have had besides becoming a Silent Sister which would not have happened. Ned was going to arrange a marriage for her eventually. & I don't believe that Cat could have gotten her to marry Elmar Frey where she would have been in a situation where she neither loved nor benefited politically from her husband. That match was mainly for Robb and the war. It's possible that she could have grown out of being a tomboy and want to become a lady but this song is supposed to represent Arya so I think GRRM is saying that part of her would never change:

My featherbed is deep and soft, and there I'll lay you down,

I'll dress you all in yellow silk, and on your head a crown.

For you shall be my lady love, and I shall be your lord.

I'll always keep you warm and safe, and guard you with my sword...

And how she smiled and how she laughed, the maiden of the tree.

She spun away and said to him, no featherbed for me.

I'll wear a gown of golden leaves, and bind my hair with grass,

But you can be my forest love, and me your forest lass..

She told Ned that she didn't want that and by AFFC she is still rejecting marriage when the KM offered it to her.

On another note, I do think that Brienne probably has more in common with Sansa than Arya. I think it's kind of annoying when people lump all the "feminine" characters or the "warrior "women characters together. Arya is not like Brienne or Asha.

I also dislike the warrior women type being categorized as having all masculine qualities simply because they fight although it has not been done in this thread. I think Brienne and Asha have a lot of feminine qualities. Arya isn't completely masculine either. & I don't think her arc post -AGoT is about feminine vs. maculine. She's often been compared to child soldiers and the point is that this could happen to any child who is put in a situation as hers. It happens to both little girls and little boys IRL.

I suspect that Arya is like Val although this quote does lay credence to the preconceived notions on how women should be but this could just be supposed to solely refer to Jon's type of woman rather than the overall right type of woman.

"A warrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her..."

Both Arya and Val have been captives but I think they are both are resourceful and try to take advantage of the little they have. Val has her bone knife while Arya has Needle. They kill based on surprise, self-defense, or using stealth. They are not like Brienne or Asha who kill based on superior combat skills.

[Winter's Knight]

@ Winter's Knight

Excellent topic for discussion. Is there where you're thinking to post our summary essays about Cat, Lysa and Brienne, or are you and Lyanna still considering a separate "mother maiden crone" oriented thread? (I saw something mentioned in the Pawn to Player, but wanted to be sure :cool4: )

I think we'll stick with this thread and work pair-by-pair.

After Sansa/Arya, we'll do Cat/Lysa, Asha/Brienne and so on.

[jarl the climber]

Yawn.

[Winter's Knight]

Yawn.

Unleash the billy goats!

[butterbumps!]

Yawn.

I'm always a bit confused as to why posters go out of their way to express antipathy/ feelings of pointlessness for the topic of the thread at hand within the thread at hand.

Not that this thread needs a defense to apologize for its existence, but honestly, so many characters are rather lazily dismissed/ praised in rather imprecise terms "stupid, idiotic, badass, awesome." It's nice to have a space that promises a bit more textual rigor in looking at character arcs without a premise of having to defend or criticize these characters personally.

[Ashg]

I must say I'm not so sure on Arya never betraying her father part. It's brought up many times in the Rhaegar/Lyanna threads how Arya wouldn't run away like that and there was even a stupid thread once asking if Lyanna deserved to be buried in Winterfell's crypts because of how she betrayed the Starks. I think part of the reason that Rhaegar may have appealed to Lyanna is because he gave her an outlet to get away from her duty to her family.

If Arya didn't want to become a lady I think that was the only choice that she would have had besides becoming a Silent Sister which would not have happened. Ned was going to arrange a marriage for her eventually. & I don't believe that Cat could have gotten her to marry Elmar Frey where she would have been in a situation where she neither loved nor benefited politically from her husband. That match was mainly for Robb and the war. It's possible that she could have grown out of being a tomboy and want to become a lady but this song is supposed to represent Arya so I think GRRM is saying that part of her would never change:

She told Ned that she didn't want that and by AFFC she is still rejecting marriage when the KM offered it to her.

...............................

.

Arya is still very young though when saying no to marriage. She's 9 when she says it not Ned and can't be more than 11 when she says no to the KM. The 9 year old that Arya was in KL was never going to grow up to be the type of Ladies her mother or sister were but that doesn't mean that she would always have been so against marriage.

[jarl the climber]

On a practical level I am more concerned with dealing with women on how they actually are in real life. How they are portrayed in any kind of social media whether in books, movies, TV, etc. is merely a deversion from actually having to confront the true reality that are women.

[ARYa_Nym]

Arya is still very young though when saying no to marriage. She's 9 when she says it not Ned and can't be more than 11 when she says no to the KM. The 9 year old that Arya was in KL was never going to grow up to be the type of Ladies her mother or sister were but that doesn't mean that she would always have been so against marriage.

It doesn't but I think GRRM was trying to convey in the No Featherbed for Me song that Arya wasn't ever going to be a lady. I think she may be in an exclusive relationship where she is like the forest lass in the song but it's not likely that she's going to be a lady. It's also extremely unlikely that she would have married someone she didn't like who couldn't even benefit her on top of that. She was never going to get the Twins by marrying Walder's youngest son and if she were in Lyanna's position I don't believe that she would have married Robert either.

[Tumnas the Torpid]

I am fine with readers criticizing and judging characters as individuals, but I just hate when sex is brought into the mix.

I am not trying to single you out specifically, Ser Flowers, but I have seen this sentiment, or some variation of it, crop up in similar discussions on the Forum. I absolutely understand what you are saying, and I support your right to discuss the series without a focus on gender issues.

But, seeing as this thread is marked as "Reading Women in Westeros", do you not think it possible that some other posters may actually be very interested in a discussion with just such a focus? Do we not have a right to our discussion, as well?

[Tumnas the Torpid]

On a practical level I am more concerned with dealing with women on how they actually are in real life. How they are portrayed in any kind of social media whether in books, movies, TV, etc. is merely a deversion from actually having to confront the true reality that are women.

Wow. You sound really excited.